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Sm EGBERT’S EOETUNE 


a IRovel 


BY 

MRS. OLIPHANT 

AUTHOR OF “ CHRONICLES OF CARLINGFORD ” “ HARRY JOSCELYN 
“ HE THAT WILL NOT WHEN HE MAY ” ETC. 


SEP 2 0 i 3's i- ' 







NEW YORK 

HARPER & BROTHERS PUBLISHERS 

1894 



■ 



Copyright, 1894, by Harper & Brothers. 
All right$ reserved^ 



\ 


SIR ROBERT'S FORTUNE 


CHAPTER I 

We are to see each other no more.” 

These words were breathed rather than spoken in the 
dim recess of a window, hidden behind ample curtains, 
the deep recess in which the window was set leaving room 
enough for two figures standing close together. Without 
was a misty night, whitened rather than lighted by a pale 
moon. 

‘‘ Who says so ? ” 

“ Alas ! my uncle,” said the white figure, which looked 
misty, like the night, in undistinguishable whiteness amid 
the darkness round. 

The other figure was less distinguishable still, no more 
than a faint solidity in the atmosphere, but from it came 
a deeper whisper, the low sound of a man’s voice. “ Your 
uncle ! ” it said. 

There was character in the voices enough to throw some 
light upon the speakers, even though they were unseen. 

The woman’s had a faint accentuation of feeling, not of 
anxiety, yet half defiance and half appeal. It seemed to 
announce a fact unchangeable, yet to look and hope for a 
contradiction. The man’s had a tone of acceptance and 
dismay. The fiat which had gone forth was more real to 
him than to her, though she was in the position of assert- 
ing and he of opposing it. 

“ Yes,” she said, ‘‘ Ronald, my uncle — who has the 
strings of the purse and every thing else in his hands ” 


2 


There was a moment’s pause, and then he said: ‘‘ How 
does he mean to manage that ? ” 

“ I am to he sent off to-morrow — it’s all settled — and if 
I had not contrived to get out to-night, you would never 
have known.” 

‘‘ But where ? It all depends upon that,” he said with 
a little impatience. 

“ To Dalrugas,” she answered, with a sigh ; and then : 
‘‘It is miles and miles from anywhere — a moor and a 
lodge, and not even a cottage near. Dougal and his wife 
live there, and take care of the place ; not a soul can come 
near it — it is the end of the world. Oh, Ronald, what 
shall I do ? what shall I do ? ” 

Once more in the passionate distress of the tone there 
was an appeal, and a sort of feverish hope. 

“ We must think ; we must think,” he said. 

“ What will thinking do ? It will not change my 
uncle’s heart, nor the distance, nor the dreadful solitude. 
What does he care if it kills me ? or any body ? ” The 
last words came from her with a shriller tone of misery, as 
if it had become too much to bear. 

“ Hush, hush, for Heaven’s sake; they will hear you ! ” 
he said. 

On the other side of the curtain there was a merry crowd 
in full career of a reel, which in those days had not gone 
out of fashion as now. The wild measure of the music, 
now quickening to lightning speed, now dropping to 
sedater motion, with the feet of the dancers keeping time, 
filled the atmosphere — a shriek would scarcely have been 
heard above that mirthful din. 

“ Oh, why do you tell me to hush?” cried the girl 
impetuously. “ Why should I mind who hears ? It is 
not for duty or love that I obey him, but only because he 
has the money. Am I caring for his money ? I could get 
my own living : it would not want much. Why do I let 
him do what he likes with me ? ” 

“My darling,” said the man’s voice anxiously, 
“ don’t do any thing rash, for God’s sake! Think of our 


3 


future. To displease him, to rebel, would spoil every 
thing. I see hope in the loneliness, for my part. Be 
patient, be patient, and let me work it out.” 

‘‘Oh, your working out ! ” she cried. “ What good 
has it done ? I would cut the knot. It would be strange 
if we two could not get enough to live upon — or myself, 
if you are afraid.” 

He soothed her, coming closer, till the dark shadow and 
the white one seemed but one, and murmured caressing 
words in her ears: “ Let us wait till the case is desperate, 
Lily. It is not desperate yet. I see chances in the moor 
and the wilderness. He is playing into our hands if he 
only knew it. Don’t, don’t spoil every thing by your 
impatience ! Leave it to me, and you’ll see good will 
come out of it.” 

“I would rather take it into my own hands!” she 
cried. 

“ No, dearest, no ! I see — I see all sorts of good in it. 
Go quite cheerfully, as if you were pleased. No, your own 
way is best — don’t let us awake any suspicions — go as if 
you were breaking your heart.” 

“ There will be no feigning in that,” she said ; “ I shall 
be breaking my heart.” 

“ For a moment,” he said. “ ‘ Weeping endureth for 
a night, but joy cometh in the morning.’ ” 

“ Don’t, Ronald ! I can’t bear to hear you quoting 
Scripture.” 

“ Why not ? lam not the devil, I hope,” he said, with 
a low laugh. 

There was a question in the girl’s hot, impatient heart, 
and then a quick revulsion of feeling. “ I don’t know 
what to do, or to think ; I feel as if I could not bear it,” 
she said, the quick tears dropping from her eyes. 

He wiped them tenderly away with the flourish of a 
white handkerchief in the dark. “ Trust to me,” he said 
soothingly. “ Be sure it is for our good, this. Listen : 
they are calling for you, Lily.” 

“ Oh, what do I care ? How can I go among them all, 


4 


and dance as if I were as gay as the rest, when my heart is 
broken ? ” 

“Not so badly broken but that it will mend,” he whis- 
pered, as with a clever, swift movement he put aside the 
curtain and led her through. He was so clever : where 
any other man would have been lost in perplexity, or even 
despair, Ronald Lumsden always saw a way through. 
He was never at a loss for an expedient : even that way of 
getting back to the room out of the shadow of the curtains 
no one could have performed so easily, so naturally as he 
did. He met and entered into the procession of dancers 
going out of the room after the exertions of that reel as if 
he and his partner formed part of it, and had been dancing 
too. People did not “ sit out ” in those days, and Ronald 
was famous for his skill in the national dance. Nobody 
doubted that he had been exerting himself with the rest. 
Lily was half English — that is, she had been sent to Eng- 
land for part of her education, and so far as reels were 
concerned, had lost some of her native skill, and was not so 
clever. She was not, indeed, supposed to be clever at all, 
though very nice, and pretty enough, and an heiress — at 
least she was likely to be an heiress, if she continued to 
please her uncle, who was not an easy man to please, and 
exacted absolute obedience. There were people who 
shook their heads over her chances, declaring that flesh 
and blood could not stand Sir Robert Ramsay’s moods ; 
but up to this time Lily had been more or less successful, 
and the stake being so great, she had, people said, “ every 
encouragement ” to persevere. 

But Lily was by no means so strong as her lover, who 
joined the throng as if he had formed part of it, with a 
perfect air of enjoyment and light-heartedness. Lily could 
not look happy. It may be said that in his repeated 
assurance that all would be right, and that he would And 
a way out of it, she ought to have taken comfort, feeling 
in that a pledge of his fidelity and steadiness to his love. 
But there was something in this readiness of resource 
which discouraged, she could not have told why, instead 


5 


of making her happy. It would have been so much 
simpler, so much more satisfactory, to have given up all 
thoughts of Sir Robert’s money, and trusted to Providence 
and their own exertions to bring them through. Lily felt 
that she could make any sacrifice, live upon nothing, live 
anywhere, work her fingers to the bone, only to be indepen- 
dent, to be free of the bondage of the uncle and the con- 
sciousness that it was not for love but for his money that 
she had to accept all his caprices and yield him obedience. 
If Ronald would but have yielded, if he would have been 
imprudent, as so many young men were, how thankful she 
would have been ! She would have been content with the 
poorest living anywhere to be free, to be with him whom 
she loved. She would have undertaken the conduct of 
their little menage herself, without even thinking of ser- 
vants; she would have cooked for him, cleaned the house 
for him, shrunk from nothing. But that, alas, was not 
Ronald’s way of looking at the matter. He believed in 
keeping up appearances, in being rich at almost any cost, 
and, at best, in looking rich if he were not really so ; and, 
above all and beyond all, in keeping well with the uncle, 
and retaining the fortune. He would not have any doubt 
thrown on the necessity of that. He was confident of his 
own powers of cheating the uncle, and managing so that 
Lily should have all she wanted, in spite of him, by throw- 
ing dust in his eyes. But Lily’s soul revolted against 
throwing dust in any one’s eyes. This was the great 
difference between them. I do not say that there was any 
great sin in circumventing a harsh old man, who never 
paused to think what he was doing, or admitted a question 
as to whether he was or was not absolutely in the right. 
He was one of the men who always know themselves to be 
absolutely right ; therefore he was, as may be said, fair 
game. But Lily did not like it. She would have liked a 
lover who said: “ Never mind, we shall be happy without 
him and his fortune.” She had tried every thing she knew 
to bring young Lumsden to this point. But she was not 
able to do so : his opinion was that every thing must be 


6 


done to preserve the fortune, and that, however hard it 
might he, there was nothing so hard but that it must be 
done to humor old Sir Robert, to prevent him from cutting 
his niece out of his will. Was not this right ? Was it 
not prudent, wise, the best thing ? If he, an advocate with- 
out a fee, a briefless barrister, living as best he could on 
chance windfalls and bits of journalism, had been as bold 
as she desired, and carried her off from the house in Moray 
Place to some garret of his own up among the roofs, would 
not every-body have said that he had taken advantage of 
her youth and inexperience, and deprived her of all the 
comforts and luxuries she was used to ? That Lily cared 
nothing for those luxuries, and that she was of the mettle 
to adapt herself to any circumstances, so long as she had 
somebody to love and who loved her, was not a thing to 
reckon with public opinion about ; and, indeed, Ronald 
Lumsden would have thought himself quite unjustified in 
reckoning with it at all. To tell the truth, he had no 
desire on his own part to give up such modest luxuries for 
himself as were to be had. 

The day of clubs was not yet, at least in Edinburgh, to 
make life easy for young men, but yet to get along, as he 
was doing precariously, w^as easier for one than it would 
be for two. Even Lily, all hot for sacrifice and for min- 
istering with her own hands to all the needs of life, had 
never contemplated the idea of doing without Robina, her 
maid, who had been with her so many years that it was 
impossible for either of them to realize what life would be 
if they were separated. Even if it should be a necessary 
reality, Robina was included as a matter of course. How 
it might be that Lily should require to scrub, and clean, 
and cook with her own hands, while she was attended by 
a lady’s maid, was a thing she had never reasoned out. 
You may think that a lady’s maid would probably be of 
less use than her mistress had such service been neces- 
sar}^ ; but this was not Robina’s case, who was a very 
capable person all round, and prided herself on being able 
to “turn her hand” to any thing. But then a run- 


7 


away match was the last thing that was in Lnmsden’s 
thoughts. 

It was a dance which every -body enjoyed that even- 
ing in the big, old-fashioned rooms in George Square. 
George Square has fallen out of knowledge in all the 
expansions of new Edinburgh, the Edinburgh that lies on 
the other side of the valley, and dates no farther back than 
last century. It also is of last century, but earlier than 
the Moray Places and Crescents ; far earlier than the last 
developments, the Belgravia of the town. There Sir 
Walter once lived, in, I think, his father’s house ; and 
these substantial, ample, homely houses were the first out- 
let of the well-to-do, the upper classes, of Edinburgh out 
of the closes and high-up apartments, approached through 
the atrocities of a common stair, in which so refined and 
luxurious a sybarite as Lawyer Pleydell still lived in Sir 
Walter’s own time. These mansions are severely plain 
outside — “ undemonstrative,” as Scotch pride arrogantly 
declares itself to be, aping humility with a pretence to 
which I, for one, feel disposed to allow no quarter ; but 
they are large and pleasant inside, and the big square 
rooms the very thing to dance in or to feast in. They 
were full of a happy crowd, bright in color and lively in 
movement, with a larger share of golden hair and rosy 
cheeks than is to be seen in most assemblies, and, perhaps, 
a greater freedom of laughter and talk than would have 
been appropriate to a solemn ball in other localities. For 
Edinburgh was not so large then as now, and they all knew 
each other, and called each other by their Christian names 
— boy and girl alike — with a general sense of fraternity 
modified by almost as many love affairs as there were pairs 
of boys and girls present. There were mothers and aunts 
all round the wide walls, but this did not subdue the hilar- 
ity of the young ones, who knew each other’s mothers and 
aunts almost as well as they knew their own, and counted 
upon their indulgence. Lily Ramsay was almost the only 
girl who had nobody of her own to turn to ; but this only 
made her the more protected and surrounded, every -body 


8 


feeling that the motherless girl had a special claim. They 
were by no means angels, these old-fashioned Edinburgh 
folk : sharper tongues could not be than were to be found 
among them, or more wicked wits ; but there was a great 
deal of kindness under the terrible turbans which crowned 
the heads of the elder ladies and the scarfs which fell 
from their bare shoulders, and they all knew every one, and 
every one’s father and mother for generations back. Their 
dress was queer, or rather, I should have said, it was queer 
before the present revival of the early Victorian or late 
Georgian style began. They wore puffed-out sleeves, with 
small feather pillows in them to keep them inflated ; they 
had bare shoulders and ringlets ; they had scarfs of lace or 
silk, carefully disposed so as not to cover any thing, but 
considered very classical and graceful, drawn in over the 
elbows, by people who knew how to wear them, making 
manifest the slender waist (or often the outlines of a waist 
which had ceased to be slender) behind. And they had, 
as has been said, a dreadful particular, which it is to be 
hoped the blind fury of fashion will not bring up again — 
turbans upon their heads. Turbans such as no Indian or 
Bedouin ever wore, of all colors and every kind of savage 
decoration, such as may be seen in pictures of that alarm- 
ing age. 

When young Lumsden left his Lily, it was in the midst 
of a group of girls collected together in the interval be- 
tween two dances, lamenting that the programme was 
nearly exhausted, and that mamma had made a point of 
not staying later than three o’clock. Because it disturbs 
papa!” said one of them indignantly, ‘‘though we all 
know he would go on snoring if the Castle Rock were 
to fall ! ” They all said papa and mamma in those 
days. 

“ But mamma says there are so many parties going,” 
said another : “ a ball for almost every night next week; 
and what are we to do for dresses? Tarlatan’s in rags 
with two, and even a silk slip is shameful to look at at the 
end of a week.” 


9 


‘‘ Lily has nothing to do but to get another whenever 
she wants it,” said Jeanie Scott. 

“ And throw away the old ones, she’s such a grand 
lady,” said Maggie Lauder. 

“ Hold all your tongues,” said Bella Rutherford ; “ it 
does her this good, that she thinks less about it than any 
of us.” 

‘‘ She has other things to think of,” cried another ; and 
there was a laugh and a general chorus, ‘‘ So have we all.” 
“But, Lily ! is Sir Robert as dour as ever ? ” one of the 
rosy creatures cried. 

“ 1 don’t think I am going to any more of your balls,” 
said Lily ; “ I’m tired of dancing. We just dance, dance, 
and think of nothing else.” 

“ What else should we think about at our age ? ” said 
Mary Bell, opening wide a pair of round blue eyes. 

“ We’ll have plenty other things to think about, mamma 
says, and that soon enough,” said Alison Murray, who 
was just going to be married, with a sigh. “ But there’s 
the music striking up again, and who’s my partner ? for 
I’m sure I don’t remember whether its Alick Scott, or 
Johnnie Beatoun, or Bob Murray. Oh ! is it you. Bob ? ” 
she said with relief, putting her hand upon an out- 
stretched arm. They were almost all in a similar per- 
plexity, except, indeed, such as had their own special 
partner waiting. Lily was almost glad that it was not 
Ronald, but a big young Macgregor, who led her off to the 
top of the room to a sedate quadrille. The waltz existed 
in those days, but it was still an indulgence, and looked 
upon with but scant favor by the mothers. The elder 
folks were scandalized by the close contact, and even the 
girls liked best that it should be an accepted lover, or at the 
least a brother or cousin, whose arm encircled their waist. 
So they still preferred dances in which there were “ fig- 
ures,” and took their pleasure occasionally in a riotous 
“ Lancers ” or a merry reel with great relief. Lily was 
young enough to forget herself and her troubles even in 
the slow movement of the quadrilles, with every -body else 


10 


round chattering and beaming and forgetting when it was 
their turn to dance. But she said to herself that it was 
the last. Of all these dances of which they spoke she 
would see none. When the others gathered, delighted to 
enjoy themselves, she would be gazing across the dark 
moor, hearing nothing but the hum of insects and the cry 
of the curlew, or, perhaps, a watchful blackbird in the little 
clump of trees. Well ! for to-night she would forget. 

I need not say it was Lumsden who saw her to her own 
door on the other side of the square. No one there would 
have been such a spoil-sport as to interfere with his right 
whatever old Sir Robert might say. They stole out in a 
lull of the leave-taking, when the most of the people were 
gone, and others lingered for just this “one more” for 
which the girls pleaded. The misty moonlight filled the 
square, and made all the waiting carriages look like ghostly 
equipages bent upon some my stic journey in the middle of 
the night. They paused at the corner of the square, where 
the road led down to the pleasant Meadows, all white and 
indefinite in the mist, spreading out into the distance. 
Lumsden would fain have drawn her away into a little 
further discussion, wandering under the trees, where they 
would have met nobody at that hour ; but Lily was not 
bold enough to w^alk in the Meadows between two and 
three in the morning. She was willing, however, to walk 
uj) and down a little on the other side of the square before 
she said good-night. Nobody saw them there, except some 
of the coachmen on the boxes, who were too sleepy to 
mind who passed, and Robina, who had silently opened 
the door and was waiting for her mistress. Robina was 
several years older than Lih% and had relinquished all 
thoughts of a sweetheart in her own person. She stood 
concealing herself in the doorway, ready, if any sound 
should be made within which denoted wakefulness on the 
part of Sir Robert, to snatch her young lady even from her 
lover’s arms ; and watching, wdth very mingled feelings, 
the pair half seen — the white figure congenial to the moon- 
light, and the dark one just visible, like a prop to a flower. 


11 


Lily’s her name and Lily’s her nature,” said Robina to 
herself, with a little moisture in her kind eyes ; “ but, oh ! 
is he worthy of her, is he worthy of her ? ” This was too 
deep a question to be solved by any thing but time and 
proof, which are the last things to satisfy the heart. At 
last there was a lingering parting, and Lily stole, in her 
white wraps, all white from top to toe, into the dark and 
silent house. 


CHAPTER II 

Lily’s room was faintly illuminated by a couple of 
candles, which, as it was a large room with gloomy furni- 
ture, made little more than darkness visible, except about 
the table on which they stood, the white cover of which, 
and the dressing-glass that stood upon it, diffused the 
light a little. It was not one of those dainty chambers in 
which our Lilys of the present day are housed. One side 
of the room was occupied by a large wardrobe of almost 
black mahogany, polished and gleaming with many years’ 
manipulation, but out of reach of these little lights. The 
bed was a large four-post bed, which once had been hung 
with those moreen curtains which were the triumph of 
the bad taste of our fathers, and had their appropriate 
accompaniment in black hair-cloth sofas and chairs. Lily 
had been allowed to substitute for the moreen white 
dimity, which was almost as bad, and hung stiff as a board 
from the valance ornamented with bobs of cotton tassels. 
She could not help it if that was the best that could be 
done in her day. Every thing, except the bed, was dark, 
and the distance of the large room was black as night, 
except for the relief of an open door into a small dressing- 
room which Robina occupied, and in which a weird little 
dip candle wdth a long wick unsnuffed was burning feebly . 
Nobody can imagine nowadays what it was to have can- 
dles which required snuffing, and which, if not attended 
to, soon began to bend and topple over, with a small red 


12 


column of consumed wick, in the midst of a black and 
smoking crust. A silver snuffer tray is quite a pretty 
article nowadays, and proves that its possessor had a 
grandfather ; but then ! The candles on the dressing- 
table, however, were carefully snuffed, and burned as 
brightly as was possible for them while Robina took off 
her young mistress’s great white Indian mantle, with its 
silken embroideries, and undid her little pearl necklace. 
Lily had the milk-white skin of a Scotch girl, and the 
rose-tints ; but she was brown in hair and eyes, as most 
people are in all countries, and had no glow of golden hair 
about her. She was tired and pale that night, and the 
tears were very near her eyes. 

‘‘Ye’ve been dancing more than ye should; these 
waltzes and new-fangled things are real exhaustin’,” 
Robina said. 

“I have been dancing very little,” said Lily; “my 
heart was too heavy. How can you dance when you have 
got your sentence in your pocket, and the police coming 
for you to haul you away to the Grassmarket by skreigh 
of day?” 

“ Hoot, away with ye ! ” cried Robina, “ what nonsense 
are ye talking ? My bonnie dear, ye’ll dance many a 
night yet at a’ the assemblies, and go in on yourain man’s 
airm ” 

“ It’s you that’s talking nonsense now. On whose 
arm ? Have we not got our sentence, you and me, to be 
banished to Dalrugas to-morrow, and never to come back 
— unless ” 

“ Ay, Miss Lily, unless ! but that’s a big word.” 

“It is, perhaps, a big word ; but it cannot touch me, 
that am not of the kind that breaks my word or changes 
my mind,” said Lily, raising her head with a gesture full 
of pride. 

“Oh, Miss Lily, my dear, I ken what the Ramsays 
are ! ” cried the faithful maid ; “ but there might be two 
meanings till it,” and she breathed a half sigh over her 
young mistress’s head. 


13 


“ You think, I know — and maybe I once thought, too ; 
but you may dismiss that from your mind, as I do,” said 
the girl, with a shake of the head as if she were shaking 
something off. And then she added, clasping her hands 
together: Oh, if I were strong enough just to say, ‘ I am 
not caring about your money. I am not afraid to be poor. 
I can work for my own living, and you can give your siller 
where you please ! ’ Oh, Beenie, that is what I want to 
say ! ’ ’ 

“ No, my darlin’, no ; you must not say that. Oh, you 
must not say that ! ” Robina cried. 

“ And why ? I must not do this or the other, and who 
are you that dares to say so ? I am my mother’s 
daughter as well as my father’s, and if that’s not as good 
blood, it has a better heart. I might go there — ■ they 
would not refuse me.” 

“ Without a penny,” said Robina. Can you think 
o’t. Miss Lily ? And is that no banishment too ? ” 

Lily rose from her chair, shaking herself free from her 
maid, with her pretty hair all hanging about her 
shoulders. It was pretty hair, though it was brown like 
every -body else’s, full of incipient curl, the crispness yet 
softness of much life. She shook it about her with her 
rapid movement, bringing out all the undertones of color, 
and its wavy freedom gave an additional sparkle to her 
e^^es and animation to her look. “ Without a penny ! ” 
she cried. ‘‘ And who is caring about your pennies ? 
You and the like of you, but not me, Beenie — not me ! 
What do I care for the money, the filthy siller, the pound 
notes, all black with the hands they’ve come through ! 
Am I minding about the grand dinners that are never 
done, and the parties, where you never see those you want 

to see, and the balls, where Just a little cottage, a 

drink o^ milk, and a piece of cake off the girdle, and 
plenty to do : it’s that that would please me ! ” 

“ Oh, my bonnie Miss Lily ! ” was all that Beenie said. 

‘‘ And when I see,” said the girl, pacing up and down 
the room, her hair swinging about her shoulders, her 


14 


white under-garments all afloat about her in the energy 
of her movements, “ that other folk think of that first. 
Whatever you do, you must not risk your fortune. 
Whatever you have to bear, you must not ofl’end your 
uncle, for he has the purse-strings in his hand. Oh, my 
uncle, my uncle ! It’s not,” she cried, “ that I wouldn’t 
be fond of him if he would let me, and care for what he , 
said, and do what he wanted as far as I was able : but his 
money ! I wish — oh, I wish his money — his money — was 
all at the bottom of the sea ! ” 

“ Whisht ! whisht !” cried Beenie, Avith a movement 
of horror. ‘‘Oh, but that’s a dreadful wish ! You would, 
maybe, no like it yourself. Miss Lily, for all you think 
now ; but what would auld Sir Robert be Avithout his 
money ? Instead of a grand gentleman, as he is, he would, 
just be a miserable auld man. He couldna bide it ; he 
would be shootin’ himself or something terrible. His 
fine dinners and his house, and his made dishes and his 
Avine that costs as much as would keep tAva-three honest 
families ! Oh, ye dinna mean it, ye dinna mean it. Miss 
Lily ! You dinna ken what you are saying ; ye wouldna 
like it yoursel’, and, oh, to think o’ him! ” 

Lily threw herself doAvn in the big chair, which rose 
above her head with its high back and brought out all her 
Avhiteness against its sober cover. She was silenced — 
obviously by the thought thus suggested of Sir Robert 
as a poor man, Avhich was an absurdity, and perhaps 
secretly, in that innermost seclusion of the heart, which 
even its possessor does not always realize, by a faint chill 
of wonder Avhether she Avould indeed and really like to be 
poor, as she protested she should. It Avas quite true that 
a drink of milk and a piece of oatcake appeared to her as 
much nourishment as any person of refinement ne^d care 
for. In the novels of her day, which always affect the 
young mind, all the heroines lived upon such fare, and 
were much superior to beef and mutton. But there were 
undoubtedly other things — Robina, for instance ; although 
no thought of parting from Robina had ever crossed Lily’s 


15 


mind as a necessary part of poverty. But she was 
silenced by these thoughts. She had not, indeed, ever con- 
fessed in so many words even to Robina, scarcely to her- 
self, that it was Ronald who cared for the money, and that 
it was the want of any impulse on his part to do without 
it that carried so keen a pang to her heart. Had he cried, 
“A fig for the money ! ” then it might have been her part 
to temporize and be prudent. The impetuosity, the reck- 
lessness, should not, she felt, be on her side. 

It was on the very next day that her decision was to be 
made, and it had not been till all other means had failed 
that Sir Robert had thus put the matter to the touch. He 
had opposed her in many gentler ways before it came to 
that. Sir Robert was not a brute or a tyrant — very far 
from it. He was an old gentleman of fine manners, plum- 
ing himself on his successes with “ the other sex,” and 
treating all women with a superfine courtesy which only 
one here and there divined to conceal contempt. Few 
men — one may say with confidence, no elderly man with- 
out wife or daughters — has much respect for women in 
general. It is curious, it is to some degree reciprocal, it 
is of course always subject to personal exceptions ; yet it 
is the rule between the two sections of humanity which 
nevertheless have to live in such intimate intercourse with 
each other. In an old bachelor like Sir Robert, and one, 
too, who was conscious of having imposed upon many 
women, this prepossession was more strong than among 
men of more natural relationships. And Lily, who was 
only his niece, and had not lived with him until very 
lately, had not overcome all prejudices in his mind, as it 
is sometimes given to a daughter to do. He had thought 
first that he could easily separate her from the young man 
who did not please him, and bestow her, as he had a right 
to bestow his probable heiress, on whom he pleased. 
When this proved ineffectual, he cursed her obstinacy, but 
reflected that it was a feature in women, and therefore 
nothing to be surprised at. They were always taken in by 
fictitious qualities — who could know it better than he ? — ^ 


16 


and considered it a glory to stick to a suitor unpalatable to 
their belongings. And then he had threatened her with 
the loss of the fortune which she had been brought up to 
expect. ‘‘ See if this fine fellow you think so much of 
will have you without your money,” he said. Lily had 
never in so many words put Lumsden to the trial, never 
proposed to him to defy Sir Robert ; but she had made 
many an attempt to discover his thoughts, and even to 
push him to this rash solution, and, with an ache at her 
heart, had felt that there was at least a doubt whether the 
fine fellow w^ould think so much of her if she were penni- 
less. She had never put it to the test, partly because she 
dared not, though she had not been able to refrain from an 
occasional burst of defiance and hot entreaty to Sir Robert 
to keep his money to himself. And now she was to decide 
for herself — to give Ronald over forever, or to give over 
Edinburgh and the society in which she might meet him, 
and keep her love at the cost of martyrdom in her uncle’s 
lonely shooting-box on the moors. There was, of course, 
a second alternative — that which she had so often thought 
of : to refuse, to leave Sir Robert’s house, to seek refuge 
in some cottage, to live on milk and oatcake, and provide 
for herself. If the alternative had been to run away with 
her lover, to be married to him in humility and poverty, 
to keep his house and cook his dinners and iron his linen, 
Lily would not have hesitated for a moment. But he had 
not asked her to do this — had not dreamed of it, it seemed; 
and to run away alone and work for herself would be, Lily 
felt, to expose him to much animadversion as well as her- 
self ; and, most of all, it would betray fully to herself and 
to her uncle, with that sneer on his face, the certainty that 
Ronald would not risk having her without her money, that 
discovery which she held at arm’s-length and would not 
consent to make herself sure of. All these thoughts were 
tumultuous in her mind as she opened her eyes to the light 
of a new day. This was the final moment, the turning- 
point of her life. She thought at first when she woke that 
it was still the same misty moonlight on which she had 

\ 


17 


shut her eyes, and that there must still be some hours 
between her and the day. But it was only an easterly 
haar with which the air was full — a state oi atmosphere 
not unknown in Edinburgh, and which wraps the land- 
scape in a blinding shroud as of white wool, obliterating 
every feature in a place which has so many. Arthur’s 
Seat and Salisbury Craigs and the Castle Rock had all dis- 
appeared in it from those who were in a position to see 
them ; and here, in George Square, even the brown houses 
opposite had gone out of sight, and the trees in the garden 
loomed dimly like ghosts, a branch thrust out here and 
there. Lily asked herself, was it still night ? And then 
her mind awoke to a state of the atmosphere not at all 
unusual, and a sense that the moment of her fate had 
arrived, and that every thing must be settled for her for 
good or for evil this day. 

She was very quiet, and said scarcely any thing even 
to Robina, who dressed her young mistress with the great- 
est care, bringing out a dress of which Sir Robert had 
expressed his approval, without consulting Lily, who 
indeed paid little attention to this important matter. 
Considering the visions of poverty and independence that 
ran in her mind, it was wonderful how peaceably she 
resigned herself to Robina’s administration. Sometimes, 
when a fit of that independence seized her, she would push 
Robina away and do every thing for herself. Beenie much 
exaggerated the misfortunes of the result in such moments. 
‘‘ Her hair just a’ come down tumbling about her shoulders 
in five minutes,” she said, which was not true : though 
Lily did not deny that she was not equal to the elaborate 
braids which were in fashion at the moment, and could not 
herself plait her hair in any thing more than three strands, 
while Beenie was capable of seven, or any number more. 

But to-day she was quite passive, and took no interest in 
her appearance. Her hair was dressed in a sort of coronet, 
which was a mode only used on grand occasions. Ordi- 
narily it was spread over the back of the head in woven 
coils and circles. There was not any thing extraordinary 
2 


18 


in Lily’s beauty. It was the beauty of youth and fresh- 
ness and health, a good complexion, good eyes, and feat- 
ures not much to speak of. People did not follow her 
through the streets, nor stand aside to make way for her 
when she entered a room. In Edinburgh there were hun- 
dreds as pretty as she ; and yet, when all was said, she 
was a pretty creature, good enough and fair enough to be 
a delight and pride to any one who loved her. She had 
innumerable faults, but she was all the sweeter for them, 
and impulses of temper, swift Avrath, and indignation, and 
imjDatience, which proved her to be any thing but perfect. 
Sometimes she would take you up at a Avord and misinter- 
pret you altogether. In all things she was apt to be too 
quick, to run away with a ’meaning before you, if you 
were of slow movement, had got it half expressed. And 
this and many other things about her were highly provok- 
ing, and called forth answering impatience from others. 
But for all this she was a very lovable, and, as other girls 
said, nice, girl. She raised no jealousies ; she entertained 
no spites. She Avas always natural and spontaneous, and 
did nothing from calculation, not even so much as the 
putting on of a dress. It did not occur to her even to 
think, to enquire whether she was looking her best when 
the hour had come at which she Avas to go to Sir Robert. 
Robina took her by the shoulders and turned her slowly 
round before the glass ; but Lily did not know Avhy. She 
gave her faithful servant a faint smile over her own 
shoulder in the mirror, but it did not enter into her mind 
that it was expedient to look her best when she went 
down stairs to her uncle. If any one had put it into Avords, 
she Avould have asked, what did he care ? Would he so 
much as notice her dress ? It Avas ridiculous to think of 
such a thing — an old man like Sir Robert, with his head 
full of different matters. Thus, without any thought on 
that subject, she went slowly down stairs — not flying, as 
Avas her Avont — very sedately, as if she were counting 
every step ; for was it not her fate and Ronald’s which 
Avas to be settled to-day ? 


19 


CHAPTER III 

“ So you are there, Lily,” Sir Robert said. 

Yes, uncle, I am here.” 

“ There is one thing about you,” he said, with a laugh: 
“ you never shirk. Now judicious shirking is not a bad 

thing. I might have forgotten all about it ” 

But I couldn’t forget,” said Lily firmly. These 
words, however, roused her to sudden self-reproach. If 
she had not been so exact, perhaps the crisis might have 
been tided over and nothing happened. It was just like 
her ! Supposing her little affairs were of more importance 
than any thing else in the world ! This roused her from 
the half-passive condition in which she had spent the 
morning, the feeling that every thing depended on her 
uncle, and nothing on herself. 

‘‘ Now that you are here,” he said, not at all unkindly, 

you may as well sit down. While you stand there I 
feel that you have come to scold me for some fault of 
mine, which is a reversal of the just position, don’t you 
think ? ” 

“ No, uncle,” replied Lily, ‘‘ of course I have not come 
to scold you — that would be ridiculous ; but I am not 
come to be scolded either, for I have not done any thing 
wrong.” 

‘‘ We’ll come to that presently. Sit down, sit down,” 
he said with impatience. Lily placed herself on the chair 
he pushed toward her, and then there was a moment’s 
silence. Sir Robert was an old man (in Lily’s opinion) and 
she was a young girl, but they were antagonists not badly 
matched, and he had a certain respect for the pluck and 
firmness of this little person who was not afraid of him. 
They were' indeed so evenly matched that there ensued a 
little pause as they both looked at each other in the milky- 
white daylight, full of mist and cold, which filled the great 


20 


windows. Sir Robert had a fire, though fires had been 
given u]) in the house. It burned with a little red point, 
sultry and smouldering, as fires have a way of doing in 
summer. The room was large and sombre, with pale 
green walls hung with some full-length portraits, the 
furniture all large, heavy, and dark. A white bust of 
himself stood stern upon a black pedestal in a corner — 
so white that amid all the sober lines of the room it 
caught the eye constantly. And Sir Robert was not a 
handsome man. His features were blunt and his air 
homely ; his head was not adapted for marble. In that 
hard material it looked frowning, severe, and merci- 
less. The bust had lived in this room longer than 
Sir Robert had done, and Lily had derived her first im- 
pressions of him from its unyielding face. The irregu- 
larities of the real countenance leaned to humor and a 
shrewdness which was not unkindly ; but there was no 
relenting in the marble head. 

“ Well,” he said at last, now we’ve met to have it out, 
Lily. You take me at my word, and it is best so. How 
old are you now ? ” 

“ I don’t see,” said Lily breathlessly, “ what that can 
have to do with it, uncle ! but I’m twenty-two — or at 
least I shall be on the 20th of August, and that is not far 
away.” 

“ No, it is not far away. Tw^enty-two — and I am — 
well, sixty-two, we may say, with allowances. That is a 
great difference between people that meet to discuss an 
important question — on quite an equal footing, Lily, as 
you suppose.” 

‘‘ I never pretended — to be your equal, uncle ! ” 

No, I don’t suppose so — not in words, not in experi- 
ence, and such like — but in intention and all that, and in 
knowing what suits yourself.” 

Lily made no reply, but she looked at him — silent, not 
yielding, tapping her foot unconsciously on the carpet, 
nervous, yet firm, not disposed to give way a jot, though 
she recognized a certain truth in what he said. 




21 


This gives you, you must see, a certain advantage to 
begin with,” said Sir Robert, “ for you are firml}^ fixed 
upon one thing, whatever I say or any one, and deter- 
mined not to budge from your position; whereas I am 
quite willing to hear reason, if there is any reason to 
show.” 

“ Uncle ! ” Lily said, and then closed her lips and re- 
turned to her silence. It was hard for her to keep silent 
with her disposition, and yet she suddenly perceived, with 
one of those flashes of understanding which sometimes 
came to her, that silence could not be controverted, 
whereas words under Sir Robert’s skilful attack would 
probably topple over at once, like a house of cards. 

“Well?” he said. While she, poor child, was pant- 
ing and breathless, he was quite cool and collected. At 
present he rather enjoyed the sight of the little thing’s 
tricks and devices, and was amused to watch how far her 
natural skill, and that intuitive cunning which such a man 
believes every woman to possess, would carry her. He 
was a little provoked that she did not follow that impetu- 
ous exclamation “ Uncle ! ” with any thing more. 

“ Well,” he repeated, wooing her, as he hoped, to 
destruction, “ what more ? Unless you state your case 
how am I to find out whether there is any justice in it or 
not ? ” 

“ Uncle,” said Lily, “ I did not come to state my case, 
which would not become me. I came because you objected 
to me, to hear what you wanted me to do.” 

“ By Jove ! ” said Sir Robert, with a laugh ; and then 
he added, “ To be so young you are a very cool hand, my 
dear.” 

“ How am I a cool hand ? I am not cool at all. I am 
very anxious. It does not matter much to you. Uncle 
Robert, what you do with me ; but,” said Lily, tears 
springing to her eyes, “ it will matter a great deal to 
me.” 

“ You little ” He could not find an epithet that 

suited, so left the adjective by itself, in sheer disability 


22 


to express himself. He would have said hnssy had he 
been an Englishman. He was tempted to say cutty, being 
a Scot — innocent epithets enough, both, but sufficient to 

make that little flare up. “You mean,” he said, “ I 

suppose, that you have nothing to do with it, and that the 
whole affair is in my hands.” 

“ Yes, uncle, I think it is,” said Lily very sedately. 

He looked at her again with another ejaculation on his 
lips, and then he laughed. 

“ Well, my dear,” he said, “ if that is the case, we can 
make short work of it — as you are in such a submissive 
frame of mind and have no will or intentions on your own 
part.” 

Here Lily’s impatient spirit got the better of the hasty 
impulse of policy which she had taken up by sudden inspi- 
ration. “ I never said that! ” she cried. 

“Then you will be so good as to explain to me what 
you did say, or rather what you meant, which is more 
important still,” Sir Robert said. 

“ I meant — ^just what I have always meant,” said Lily, 
drawing back her chair a little and fixing her eyes upon 
her foot, which beat the floor with a nervous movement. 

“ And what is that ? ” he asked. 

Lily drew back a little more, her foot ceased to tap, her 
hands clasped each other. She looked up into his face 
with half-reproachful eyes full of meaning. “ Oh, Uncle 
Robert, you know ! ” 

Sir Robert jumj^ed up from his chair, and then sat down 
again. Demonstrations of wrath were of no use. He felt 
inclined to cry, “ You little cutty ! ” again, but did not. 
He puffed out a quick breath, which was a sign of great 
impatience, yet self -repression. “ You mean, 1 suppose, 
that things are exactly as they were — that you mean to 
pay no attention to my representations, that you choose 
your own will above mine — notwithstanding that I have 
complete power over yon, and can do with you what I 
will?” 

“ Nobody can do that,” said Lily, only half aloud. “ I 


23 


am not a doll,” she said, ‘‘ Uncle Robert. You have the 
power — so that I don’t like to disobey you.” 

But do it all the same! ” he cried. 

Not if I can help it. I would like to do it. I would 
like to be independent. It seems dreadful that one should 
be obliged to do, not what one wishes, but what another 

person wills. But you have the power ” 

Of the ways and means,” he said ; I have the purse- 
strings in my hand.” 

It was Lily’s turn now to start to her feet. Oh, how 
mean of you, how base of you!” she said. You, a great 
man and a soldier, and me only a girl. To threaten me 
with your purse-strings ! As if I cared for your purse- 
strings. Give it all away from me ; give it all — that’s 
what I should like best. I will go away with Beenie, and 
we’ll sew, or do something else for our living. I’m very 
fond of poultry — I could be a henwife ; or there are many 
other things that I could do. Give it all away ! Tie them 
up tight. I just hate your money and your purse-strings. 
I wish they were all at the bottom of the sea! ” 

You would find things very different if they were, I 
can tell you,” he said, with a snort. 

‘‘ Oh, yes, very different. I would be free. I would 
take my own way. I would have nobody to tyrannize 
over me. Oh, uncle ! forgive me ! forgive me ! I did 
not mean to say that ! If you were poor, I would take care 
of you. I would remember you were next to my father, 
and I would do any thing you could say.” 

He kept his eyes fixed on her as she stood thus, defiant 
yet compunctious, before him. I don’t doubt for a 
moment you w^ould do every thing that was most senseless 
and imprudent,” he said. 

Then Lily dropped into her chair and cried a little — 
partly that she could not help it, partly that it was a 
weapon of war like another — and gained a little time. 
But Sir Robert was not moved by her crying ; she had 
not, indeed, expected that he would be. 

“ I don’t see what all this has to do with it,” he said. 


24 


‘‘ Consider this passage of arms over, and let us get to 
business, Lily. It was necessary there should be a flash in 
the pan to begin.” 

Lily dried her eyes ; she set her little mouth much as Sir 
Robert set his, and then said in a small voice : I am quite 
ready, Uncle Robert,” looking not unlike the bust as she 
did so. He did not look at all like the bust, for there was 
a great deal of humor in his face. He thought he saw 
through all this little flash in the pan, and that it had been 
intended from the beginning as a preface of operations 
and by way of subduing him to her will. In all of which 
he was quite wrong. 

“ I am glad to hear it, Lily. Now I want you to be 
reasonable : the thunder is over and the air is clearer. 
You want to marry a man of whom I don’t approve.” 

‘‘ One word,” she said with great dignity. “ I am 
wanting to marry — nobody. There is plenty of time.” 

‘‘ I accept the correction. You want to carry on a love 
affair which you prefer at this moment. It is more fun 
than marrying, and in that way you get all the advantages 
I can give you, and the advantage of a lover’s attentions 
into the bargain. I congratulate you, my dear, on making 
the best, as the preacher says, of both worlds.” 

Lily flushed and clasped her hands together, and there 
came from her expanded nostrils what in Sir Robert’s case 
we have called a snort of passion. Lily’s nostrils were 
small and pretty and delicate. This was a puff of heated 
breath, and no more. 

‘‘ Eh ? ” he said ; but she mastered herself and said 
nothing, which made it more difficult for him to go on. 
Finally, however, he resumed. 

You think,” he said, “that it will be more difficult 
for me to restrain you if j^ou or your lover have no imme- 
diate intention of marrying. And pi’obably he — for I do 
him the justice to say he is a very acute fellow — sees the 
advantage of that. But it will not do for me. I must 
have certainty one way or another. I am not going to 
give the comfort of my life over into your silly hands. 


25 


No, I don’t even say that you are sillier than most of your 
age — on the contrary ; but I don’t mean,” he added 
deliberately, ‘‘ to put my peace of mind into your hands. 
You will give me your word to give up the lad Lumsden, 
or else you will pack off without another word to Dal- 
rugas. It is a comfortable house, and Dougal and his 
wife will be very attentive to you. What’s in a locality ? 
George Square is pleasant enough, but it’s prose of the 
deepest dye for a lady in love. You’ll find nothing but 
poetry on my moor. Poetry,” he added, with a laugh, 
“ sonnets such as you will rarely match, and moonlight 
nights, and all the rest of it ; just the very thing for a love- 
lorn maiden : but very little else, I allow. And what do 
you want more ? Plenty of time to think upon the happy 
man.” 

His laugh was fiendish, Lily thought, who held herself 
with both her hands to keep still and to retain command 
of herself. She made no answer, though the self-restraint 
was almost more than she could bear. 

‘‘ Well,” he said, after a pause, ‘‘ is this what you are 
going to decide upon ? There is something to balance all 
these advantages. While you are thinking of him he will 
probably nof return the compliment. Out of sight, out of 
mind. He will most likely find another Lily not so closely 
guarded as you, and while you are out of the way he will 
transfer his attention to her. It will be quite natural. 
There are few men in the world that would not do the 
same. And while you are gazing over the moor, thinking 
of him, he will be taking the usual means to indemnify 
himself and forget you.” 

“ I am not afraid,” said Lily tersely. 

‘‘ Oh, you are not afraid ? It’s little you know of men, 
my dear. Lumsden’s a clever, ambitious young fellow. 
He perhaps believes he’s fond of you. He is fond of any 
thing that will help him on in the world and give him 
what he wants — which is a helping hand in life, and ease 
of mind, and money to tide him over till he makes himself 
known. Oh, he’ll succeed in the end, there is little doubt 


26 


of that ; but he shall not succeed at my expense. Now, 
Lily, do not sit and glare, like a waxen image, but give 
me an answer like a sensible girl, as you can be if you 
like. Will you throw away your happy life, and society 
and variety and pleasure, and your balls and parties, all 
for the sake of a man that the moment your back is turned 
will think no more of you ? ” 

‘‘Uncle,” said Lily, clearing her throat. But she 
could not raise her voice, which extreme irritation, indig- 
nation, and the strong elfort of self-restraint seemed to 
have stifled. She made an effort, but produced nothing 
but a hoarse repetition of his name. 

“ I hope I have touched you,” he said. “ Come, my 
dear, be a sensible lassie, and be sure I am speaking for 
your good. There are more fish in the sea than ever came 
out in a net. 1 will find you a better man than Lumsden, 
and one with a good house to take you home to, and not 
a penniless ” 

“Stop!” she cried, with an angry gesture. “Stop! 
Do you think I am wanting a man ? Me ! Just any man, 
perhaps, you think, no matter who ? Oh, if I were only 
a laddie instead of a useless girl you would never, never 
dare, great man as you are, to speak like that to me ! ” 

“ Certainly I should not,” he said, with a laugh, “ for 
you would have more sense, and would not think any 
woman was worth going into exile for. But, girl as you 
are, Lily, the choice is in your own hands. You can 
have, not love in a cottage, but love on a moor, which 
soon will be unrequited love, and that, we all know, is the 
most tragic and interesting of all.” 

“Uncle,” said Lily, slowly recovering herself, “do 
you think it is a fine thing for a man like you, a grand 
gentleman, and old, and that knows every thing, to make 
a jest and a mockery of one that is young like me, and has 
no words to make reply ? Is it a joke to think of me 
breaking my heart, as you say, among all the bonnie sun- 
sets and the moonlight nights and the lonely, lonely moor ? 
I may have to do it if it’s your will ; but it’s not for 


27 


the like of you, that have your freedom and can do what 
you choose, to make a mock at those that are helpless 
like me.” 

“ Helpless ! ” he said. “ Nothing of the sort ; it is all 
in your own hands.” 

And then there was again a pause. He thought she was 
making up her mind to submit to his will. And she was 
bursting with the effort to contain herself, and all her 
indignation and wrath. Her pride would not let her burst 
forth into cries and tears, but it was with the greatest 
watchfulness upon herself that she kept in these wild 
expressions of emotion, and the hot refusals that pressed to 
her lips — refusals to obey him, to be silenced by him, to 
be sentenced to unnatural confinement and banishment 
and dreary exile. Why should one human creature have 
such power of life and death over another ? Her whole 
being revolted in a passion of restrained impatience and 
rage and fear. 

‘‘ Well,” he said lightly, ‘‘ which is it to be ? Don’t 
trifle with your own comfort, Lily. Just give me the 
answer that you will see no more of young Lumsden. 
Give him no more encouragement ; think of him no more. 
That is all I ask. Only give me your promise— -I put faith 
in you. Think of him no more ; that is all I ask.” 

‘‘All you ask — only that!” said Lily in her fury. 
“ Only that ! Oh, it’s not much, is it ? not much — onl}^ 
that ! ” She laughed, too, with a sort of echo of his 
laugh ; but somehow he did not find it to his mind. 

“That is all,” he said gravely; “and I don’t think 
that it is very much to ask, considering that you owe 
every thing to me.” 

“ It would have been better for me if I had owed you 
nothing, uncle,” said Lily. “ Why did you overtake any 
heed of me ? I would have been earning my own bread 
and had my freedom and lived my own life if you had 
left me as I was.” 

“ This is what one gets,” he said, as if to himself, with 
a smile, “ for taking care of other people’s children. But 


28 


we need not fall into general reflections, nor jet into 
recriminations. I would probably not do it again if 1 had 
it to do a second time ; but the thing I want from you at 
the present moment is merely a yes or no.” 

“No!” Lily said almost inaudibly; but her tightly 
closed lips, her resolute face, said it for her without need 
of any sound. 

“No?” he repeated, half incredulous; then, with a 
nod, flinging back his head : “ Well, my dear, you must 
have your wilful way. Dalrugas will daily be growing 
bonnier and bonnier at this season of the year ; and to- 
morrow you will get ready to go away.” 


CHAPTER IV 

I HAVE been a fool,” said Lily. I have not said any 
thing that I meant to say. I had a great many good 
reasons all ready, and I did not say one of them. I just 
said silly things. He played upon me like a fiddle ; he 
made me so angry I could not endure myself, and then I 
had either to hold my tongue or say things that were silly 
and that I ought not to have said.” 

Oh, dear me, dear me,” cried Robina, just thought 
you would do that. If I had only been behind the door to 
give ye a look, Miss Lily. Ye are too impetuous when you 
are left to yourself.” 

^‘1 was not impetuous; I was just silly,” Lily said. 

He provoked me till I did not know what I was saying, 
and then I held my tongue at the wrong places. But it 
would just have come to the same whatever I had said. 
He’ll not yield, and I’ll not yield, and what can we do but 
clash ? We’re to start off for Dalrugas to-morrow, and 
that’s all that we have to think of now.” 

Oh, Miss Lily ! ” cried Robina. She wrung her hands, 
and, with a look of awe, added : ‘Ht’s like thae poor Poles 
in ‘Elizabeth ’ going off in chains to that place they call 

\ 


29 


Siberee, where there’s nothing but snow and ice and wild, 
wild forests. Oh, niy bonnie lamb ! I mind the woods up 
yonder where it’s dark i’ the mid of day. And are ye to 
be banished there, you that are just in your bloom, and 
every body at your feet? Oh, Miss Lily, it canna be, it 
canna be ! ” 

“ It will have to be,” said Lily resolutely, and we must 
make the best of it. Take all the working things you can 
think of ; I’ve been idle, and spent my time in nothings. 
I’ll learn all your bonnie lace stitches, Beenie, and how to 
make things and embroideries, like Mary, Queen of Scots. 
We’ll be two prisoners, and Dougal will turn the key on 
us every night, and we’ll make friends with somebody like 
Roland, the page, that will make false keys and let us 
down from the window, with horses waiting ; and then 
we’ll career across the country in the dead of night, and 
folk will take us for ghosts ; and then — we’ll maybe ride 
on broomsticks, and fly up to the moon ! ” cried Lily, 
with a burst of laughter, which ended in a torrent of 
tears. 

“ Oh, my bonnie dear ! oh, my lamb ! ” cried Beenie, 
taking the girl’s head upon her ample breast. It is not 
to be imagined that these were hysterics, though hysterics 
were the fashion of the time, and the young ladies of the 
day indulged in them freely at any contrariety. Lily was 
over-excited and worn out, and she had broken down for 
the moment. But in a few minutes she had raised her 
head, pushed Beenie away, and got up with bright eyes to 
meet her fate. 

‘‘ Take books too,” she cried, as many as you can, and 
perhaps he’ll let us keep our subscription to the library, 
and they can send us things by the coach. And take all my 
pencils and my colors. I’ll maybe turn into a great artist 
on the moors that Uncle Robert says are so bonnie. He 
went on about his sunsets and his moonlights till he nearly 
drove me mad,” cried Lily, mocking ! Oh, Beenie, what 
hard hearts they have, these old men ! ” 

‘‘ I would just like,” cried the faithful maid, ‘‘ to have 


30 


twa-three words with him. Ob, I should like to have 
twa-three words with him, just him and me by our twa 
sels ! ” 

And much good that would do ! He would just turn 
you outside in with his little finger,” said Lily in high 
scorn. But naturally Robina was not of that opinion. She 
was ready to go to the stake for her mistress, and facing 
Sir Robert in his den was not a bad version of going to the 
stake. It might procure her instant dismissal for any thing 
Beenie knew ; he might tell old Haygate^ the old soldier- 
servant, who was now his butler, and an Englishman, con- 
sequently devoid of sympathy, to put her to the door ; 
anyhow, he would scathe her with satirical words and that 
look which even Lily interpreted as mocking, and which is 
the most difficult of all things to bear. But Beenie had a 
great confidence that there were ‘‘ twa-three things ” that 
nobody could press upon Sir Robert’s attention but herself. 
She thought of it during the morning hours to the exclu- 
sion of every thing else, and finally after luncheon was 
over, when Lily was occupied with some youthful visitors, 
Beenie, with a beating heart, put her plan into execution. 
Haygate was out of the way, too, the Lord be praised. He 
had started out upon some mission connected with the wine- 
cellar ; and Thomas, the footman, was indigenous, had been 
Tommy to Robina from his boyliood, and was so, she said, 
like a boy of her own. He would never put her to the 
door, whatever Sir Robert might say. She went down ac- 
cordingly to the dining-room, after the master of the house 
had enjoyed his good lunch and his moment of somnolence 
after it (which he would not for the world have admitted 
to be a nap), and tapped lightlj^, tremulously, with all her 
nerves in a twitter, at the door. To describe what was in 
Beenie’s heart when she opened it in obedience to his call 
to come in was more than words are capable of : it was 
like going to the stake. 

Oh, Beenie ! so it is you,” the master said. 

’Deed, it’s just me. Sir Robert. I thought if I might 
say a word ” 


81 


‘‘Oh, say a dozen words if you like ; but, mind, I am 
going out, and I have no time for more.” 

“Yes, Sir Robert,” Beenie came inside the door, and 
closed it softly after her. She then took up the black silk 
apron which she wore, denoting her rank as lady’s maid, to 
give her a countenance, and made an imaginary frill upon it 
with her hands. “ I just thought,” she said, with her head 
bent and her eyes fixed on this useful occupation, “that I 
would like to say twa-three words about Miss Lily, Sir 
Robert ” 

“ Oh,” he said, “ and what might 3^011 have to say about 
Miss Lily ? You should know more about her, it is true, 
than any of us. Has she sent you to say that she has re- 
covered her senses, and is going to behave like a girl of 
sense, as I always took her to be ? ” 

Beenie raised her eyes from her fantastic occupation, 
and looked at Sir Robert. She shook her head. Slie 
formed her lips into a round “ No,” pushing them forth to 
emphasize the syllable. “ Eh, Sir Robert,” she said at 
last, “ you’re a clever man — you understand many a thing 
that’s just Greek and Hebrew to the likes of us ; but ye 
dinna understand a lassie’s heart. How should ye ? ” said 
Beenie, compassionately shaking her head again. 

Sir Robert’s luncheon had been good ; he had enjo^^ed 
his nap ; he was altogether in a good humor. “ Well,” he 
said, “ if you can enlighten me on that point, Beenie, fire 
away ! ” 

“ Wee.l, Sir Robert, do ye no think you’re just forcing 
her more and more into it, to make her suffer for her lad, 
and to have nothing to do but think upon him and weary 
for him away yonder on yon solitary moor ? Eh, it’s like 
driving her to the wilderness, or away to Siberee, that 
awfu’ place where they send the Poles, as ye will read in 
‘Elizabeth,’ to make them forget their country, and where 
they just learn to think upon it more and more. Eh, Sir 
Robert, we’re awfu’ perverse in that way ! I would have 
praised him up to her, and said there was no man like him in 
the w^orld. I would have said he was just the one that cared 


82 


nothing for siller, that would have taken her in her shift — 
begging your pardon for sic a common word ; I would 
have hurried her on to fix the and made every thing 
as smooth as velvet ; and then just as keen as she is for 
it now I would have looked to see her against it then.” 

I allow,” said Sir Robert, with a laugh, ‘‘ that you have 
a cloud of witnesses on your side ; but I am not quite sure 
that I put faith in them. If I were to hurry her on to fix 
the day, as you say, I would get rid, no doubt, of the 
trouble ; but I am much afraid that Lily, instead of 
starting off on the other tack, would take me at my 
word.” 

Sir,” said Beenie in a lowered voice, coming a step 
nearer, if we were to leave it to him to show her the con- 
trary, it would be more effectual than any thing 3'ou could 
say.” 

So,” said Sir Robert, with a long whistle of surprise, 
‘‘ you trust him no more than I do ? I always thought you 
were a woman of sense.” 

“ I am saying nothing about that, Sir Robert,” Beenie 
replied. 

‘‘ But don’t ye see, you silly woman, that he would 
take my favor for granted in that case, and would not 
show her to the contrary, but would marry her in as great 
haste as we liked, feeling sure that I had committed my- 
self, and would not then draw back ?” 

He would do ye nae justice, Sir Robert, if he thought 
that.” 

‘‘ What do you mean, you libellous person ? You think 
I would encourage her in her folly in the hope of chang- 
ing her mind, and then deceive and abandon her when she 
had followed my advice ? No,” he said, “I am not so bad 
as that.” 

You should ken best. Sir Robert,” said Beenie, ‘‘ but 
for me, I would not say. But if ye will just permit me 
one more word. Here she has plenty of things to think 
of : her parties and her dress, and Iier friends and her 
other partners — there’s three young leddies up the stair 


33 


at this moment talking a’ the nonsense that comes into 
their heads — but there she would have no person ” 

‘‘ Not a soul, except Dougal and his wife,” said Sir 
Robert, with a chuckle. 

‘‘And nothing to think of but just — him. Oh, Sir 
Robert, think what ye are driving the bairn to ! No 
diversions and no distractions, but just to think upon him 
night and day. There’s things she finds to object to in 
him when he’s by her side — just like you and me. But 
when she’s there she’ll think and think upon him till she 
makes him out to be an angel o’ light. He will just get 
to be the only person in the world. He will write to 
her ” 

“ That he shall not do ! Dougal shall have orders to 
stop every letter.” 

Beenie smiled a calm, superior smile. “ And ye think 
Dougal — or any man in the world — can keep a lad and lass 
from communication. Eh, Sir Robert, you’re a clever 
man ! but just as ignorant, as ignorant as any bairn.” 

Sir Robert was much amused, but he began to get a 
little impatient. “If they can find means of communicat- 
ing in spite of the solitude and the miles of moor and 
Dougal, then I really think they will deserve to be per- 
mitted to ruin all their prospects,” he said. 

“ Sir Robert ! ” 

“ No more,” he said. “ I have already heard you with 
great patience, Beenie. I don’t think you have thrown 
any new light on the subject. Go and pack your boxes ; 
for the coach starts early to-morrow, and you should have 
every thing ready both for her and yourself to-night.” 

Beenie turned away to the door, and then she turned 
round again. She stood pinching the imaginary frill on 
her apron, with her head held on one side, as if to judge 
the effect. “Will that be your last word. Sir Robert?” 
she said. “ She’s your brother’s bairn, and the only one 
in the family — and a tender bit thing, no used to unkind- 
ness, nor to be left all her lane as if there was naebody left 
in the world. Oh, think upon the bit thing sent into the 
3 


34 


wilderness ! It is prophets and great men that are sent 
there in the way of Providence, and no a slip of a lassie. 
Oh, Sir Robert, think again ! that’s no your last word ? ” 

Would you like me to ring for Haygate and have you 
turned out of the house ? If you stay another minute, that 
will be my last word.” 

Na,” said Beenie, Haygate’s out. Sir Robert, and 
Tommy’s not the lad ” 

Will you go, you vixen ? ” Sir Robert shouted at the 
top of his voice. 

‘‘I’ll go, since I cannot help it; but if it comes to harm, 
oh, Sir Robert ! afore God the wyte will be on your 
head.” 

Beenie dried her eyes as she went sorrowfully upstairs. 
“The wyte will be on his head ; but, oh, the sufferin’ and 
the sorrow that will be on hers ! ” Beenie said to herself. 

But it was evident there was no more to be said. As 
she went slowly upstairs with a melancholy countenance, 
she met at the door of the drawing-room the three young 
ladies who had been — according to her own description — 
“ talking a’ the nonsense that came into their heads,” with 
Lily in the midst, who was taking leave of them. “ Oh, 
there is Robina,” they all cried out together. “ Beenie 
will tell us what it means. What is the meaning of it all ? 
She says she is going away. Beenie, Beenie, explain this 
moment ! What does she mean about going away ?” 

“ Eh, my bonnie misses,” cried Beenie, “ who am I that 
I should explain my mistress’s dark sayings ? I am just a 
servant, and ken nothing but what’s said to me by the 
higher powers.” 

There was what Beenie afterward explained as “ a cackle 
o’ laughing ” over these words, which were just like Beenie, 
the girls said. “ But what do you know from the higher 
powers ? And why, why is Lily to be snatched away ? ” 
they said. Robina softly pushed her way through them 
with the superior weight of her bigness. “ Ye must just 
ask herself, for it is beyond me,” she said. 

Lily rushed after her as soon as the visitors were gone. 


35 


pale with expectation. Ob, Beenie, wbat did he say ? ” 
she cried. 

‘‘ What did who say, Miss Lily ? for I do not catch your 
meaning,” said the faithful maid. 

‘‘ Do you mean to say that you did not go down 
stairs ” 

‘‘Yes, Miss Lily, I went down the stairs.” 

“ To see my uncle ? ” said the girl. “ I know you saw 
my uncle. I heard your voice murmuring, though they 
all talked at once. Oh, Beenie, Beenie, what did he say ?” 

“ Since you will have it. Miss Lily, I did just see Sir 
Robert. There was nobody but me in the way, and I saw 
your uncle. He was in a very good key after that grand 
dish of Scots collops. So I thought I would just ask him 
if it was true.” 

“ And what did he say ? ” 

Beenie shook her head and said, “ No,” in dumb show 
with her pursed-out lips. “ He just said it was your own 
doing, and not his,” she added, after this impressive 
pantomime. 

“ Oh, how did he dare to say so ! It was none of my 
doing — how could he say it was my doing ? Was I likely 
to want to be banished away to Dalrugas moor, and never 
see a living soul ? ” 

“ He said you wouldna yield, and he wouldna yield; and 
in that case. Miss Lily, I ask you what could the like of 
me do ? ” 

“ I would not yield,” said Lily. “ Oh, what a story ! what 
a story ! What have I got to yield ? It was just him, him, 
his own self, and nobody else. He thinks more of his own 
will than of all the world.” 

“ Pie said you would not give up your love — I am mean- 
ing young Mr. Lumsden — no, for any thing he could say.” 

“ And what would I give him up for ? ” cried Lily, 
changing in a moment from pale to red. “ What do I 
ever see of Sir Robert, Beenie ? He’s not up in the morn- 
ing, and he’s late at night. I have heard you say yourself 
about that club I see him at his lunch, and that’s all, 


36 


and how can you talk and make great friends when your 
mouth is full, and him so pleased with a good dish and 
angry when it’s not to his mind ? Would I give up Ronald, 
that is all I have, for Sir Robert with his mouth full ? 
And how does he dare to ask me — him that will not do a 
thing for me ? ” 

“ That is just it,” said Beenie, shaking her head ; ‘^you 
think a’ the reason’s on your side, and he thinks a’ the 
reason is on his ; and he’ll have his own gate and you’ll 
have your will, and there is no telling what is to be done 
between 3^ou. Oh, Miss Lily, my bonnie dear, you are but 
a young thing. It’s more reasonable Sir Robert should 
have his will than you. He’s gone through a great deal of 
fighting and battles and troubles, and what have you ever 
gone through but the measles and the king-cough, that 
couldna be helped ? It’s mair becoming that you should 
yield to him than he should yield to you.” 

And am I not ^fielding to him ? ” said Lily. I just do 
whatever he tells me. If he says, ‘You are to come out 
with me to dinner,’ though I know how wearisome it will 
be, and though I had the nicest party in the world and all 
my own friends, I just give in to him without a word. I 
wear that yellow gown he gave me, though it’s terrible to 
behold, just to please him. I sit and listen to all his old 
gentlemen grumbling, and to him paying his compliments 
to all his old ladies, and never laugh. Oh, Beenie, if you 
could hear him ! ” and here Lily burst into the laugh which 
she had previously denied herself. “ But when he comes 
and tells me to give up Ronald for the sake of his nasty, 
filthy siller ” 

“Miss Lily, that’s no Mr. Ronald’s opinion.” 

“ Oh ! ” cried Lily, stamping her foot upon the ground, 
while hot tears rushed to her eyes, “ as if that did not 
make it a hundred times worse ! ” she cried. 

And then there was a pause, and Beenie, with great 
deliberation, began to take out a pile of dresses from the 
wardrobe, which she opened out and folded one after 
another, patting them with her plump hands upon the bed. 


37 


Lily watched her for some moments in silence, and then 
she said with a faltering voice : “Do you really think, 
then, that there is no hope ? ” 

Robina answered in her usual way, pursing out her lips 
to form the “ No ” which she did not utter audibly. “ Un- 
less you will yield,” she said. 

“ Yield — to give up Ronald ? To meet him and never 
speak to him ? To let him think I’m a false woman, and 
mansworn ? I will never do that,” Lily said. 

“ But you’ll no marry him, my lamb, without your uncle’s 
consent ? ” 

“ He’ll not ask me ! ” cried Lily, desperate. “ Why do 
you torment me when you know that is just the worst of 
all ? Oh, if he would try me ! And who is wanting to 
marry him — or any man ? Certainly not me ! ” 

“ If you were to give your uncle your word — if you 
were to say, ‘ We’ll just meet at kirk and market and say 
good -even and good-morrow,’ but nae mair. Oh, Miss 
Lily, that is not much to yield to an old man.” 

“ I said as good as that, but he made no answer. Beenie, 
pack up the things and let us go quietly away, for there is 
no help for us in any man.” 

“ A’ the same, if I were 3^ou, I would try,” said Robina, 
taking the last word. 

Lily said nothing in reply ; but that night, when she 
was returning with Sir Robert from a solemn party to 
which she had accompanied him, she made in the darkness 
some faltering essay at submission. “I would have to 
speak to him when we meet,” she said, “ and I would have 
to tell him there was to be no more — for the present. And 
I would not take any step without asking you. Uncle 
Robert.” 

Sir Robert nearly sprang from his carriage in indigna- 
tion at this halting obedience. “ If you call that giving 
up your will to mine, I don’t call it so ! ” he cried. “ ‘ Tell 
him there is to be no more — for the present ! ’ That is a 
bonnie kind of submission to me, that will have none of 
him at all.” 


88 


It is all I can give,” said Lily with spirit, drawing 
into her own corner of the carriage. Her heart was very 
full, but not to save her life could she have said more. 

“ Very well,” said Sir Robert ; “ Haygate has his orders, 
and will see you off to-morrow. Mind you are in good 
time, for a coach will wait for no man, nor woman either ; 
and I’ll bid you good-by now and a better disposition to 
you, and a good journey. Good-night.” 

And at seven o’clock next morning, in the freshness of 
the new day, the North mail sure enough carried Lily and 
Robin a away. 


CHAPTER V 

A HIGHLAND moor is in itself a beautiful thing. When 
it is in full bloom of purple heather, with all those breaks 
and edges of emerald green which betray the bog below, 
with the sweet-scented gale sending forth its odor as it is 
crushed underfoot, and the yellow gorse rising in broken 
lines of gold, and here and there a half-grown rowan, with 
its red berries, and here and there a gleam of clear dark 
water, nothing can be more full of variety and the charm 
of wild and abounding life. But when the sky is gray 
and the weather bleak, and the heather is still in tlie green, 
or dry with the gray and rustling husks of last year’s bloom ; 
when there is little color, and none of those effects of light 
and shade which make a drama of shifting interest upon 
the Highland hills and lochs, all this is very different, and 
the long sweep of wild and broken ground, under a low 
and dark sky, becomes an image of desolation instead of 
the fresh and blooming and fragrant moor of early autumn. 
Dalrugas was a tall, pinched house, with a high gable cut 
in those rectangular lines which are called crow steps in 
Scotland, rising straight up from the edge of the moor. 
The height and form of this gave a parsimonious and 
niggardly look — though the rooms were by no means con- 


39 


temptible witliin — which was increased by the small win- 
dows pierced high up in the wall. There was no garden 
on that side, not so much as the little plot to which even 
a cottage has a right. Embedded within the high, sbarp- 
cornered walls behind was a kitchen-garden or kale-yard, 
where the commonest vegetables were grown with a border 
of gooseberries and a few plants of sweet-william and 
appleringie ; but this was not visible to give any softness 
to the prospect. The heather came up uncompromisingly, 
with a little hillock of green turf here and there, to the 
very walls, which had once been whitewashed, and still in 
their forlorn dinginess lent a little variety to the landscape ; 
but this did but add to the cold, pinched, and resistant 
character of the house. It looked like a prim ancient lady, 
very spare, and holding her skirts close round her in the 
pride of penury and evil fortune. The door was in the 
outstanding gable, and admitted directly into a low pas- 
sage from which a spiral stair mounted to the rooms above. 
On the ground-floor there was a low, dark-pannelled din- 
ing-room and library full of ancient books, but these rooms 
were used only when Sir Robert came for shooting, which 
happened very rarely. The drawing-room upstairs was 
bare also, but yet had some lingerings of old-fashioned 
grace. From the small, deep-set, high windows there was 
a wide, unbroken view over the moor. The moor stretched 
everywhere, miles of it, gray as the low sky which hung 
over it, a canopy of clouds. The only relief was a bush of 
gorse here and there half in blossom, for the gorse is never 
wholly out of blossom, as every-body knows, and the dark 
gleam of the water in a cutting, black as the bog which it 
was meant to drain. The dreary moorland road which 
skirted the edge passed in front of the house, but was only 
visible from these windows at a corner, where it emerged 
for a moment from a group of blighted firs before disap- 
pearing between the banks of heather and whin, which 
had been cut to give it passage. This was the only relief 
from the monotony of the moor. 

It was in this house that Lily and her maid arrived after 


40 


a journey which had not been so uncheerfiil as they antici- 
pated. A journey by stage-coach through a beautiful 
country can scarcely be dreary in the worst of circum- 
stances. The arrivals, the changes, the villages and towns 
passed through, the contact with one’s fellow-creatures 
which is inevitable, shake olf more or less the most sullen 
discontent ; and Lily was not sullen, while Beenie was one 
of the most open-hearted of human creatures, ready to 
interest herself in every one she met, and to talk to them 
and give her advice upon their circumstances. The pair 
met all sorts of people on their journey, and they made 
almost as man}^' friendships, and thus partially forgot tlie 
penitential object of their own travels, and that they were 
being sent off to the ends of the earth. 

It was only when the gig ” met them at the village, 
where the coach stopped on its northern route, that their 
destination began to oppress either the mistress or the maid. 
This was on the afternoon of a day which had been par- 
tially bright and partially wet, the best development of 
weather to be hoped for in the North. The village was a 
small collection of cottages, partly with tiled roofs, making 
a welcome gleam of color, but subdued by a number of 
those respectable stone houses with blue tiles, which were 
and are the ideal of comfortable sobriety, which, in defiance 
of all the necessities of the landscape, the Scotch middle 
class has unfortunately fixed upon. The church stood in 
the midst — a respectable oblong barn, with a sort of long 
extinguisher in the shape of a steeple attached to it. On 
the outskirts the cottages became less comfortable and 
more picturesque, thatched, and covered with lichens. It 
was a well-to-do village. The ‘‘merchant,” as he was 
called, ^. e., the keeper of the “ general ” shop, was a Low- 
land Scot, very contemptuous of “ thae Highlanders,” and 
there was a writer or solicitor in the place, and a doctor, 
besides the minister, who formed a little aristocracy. The 
English minister so called, that is, the Episcopalian, came 
occasionally — once in two or three Sundays — to officiate in 
a smaller barn, without any extinguisher, which held itself 


41 


a little apart in a corner, not to mingle with the common 
people who did not possess Apostolical Succession ; though, 
indeed, in those days there w'as little controversy, the 
Episcopalians being generally of that ritual by birth, and 
unpolemical, making no pretensions to superiority over the 
native Kirk. 

The gig that met the travellers at Kinloch-Rugas was a 
tall vehicle on two wheels, which had once been painted 
yellow, but which was scarcely trim enough to represent 
that type of respectabilit}^ which a certain young Thomas 
Carlyle, pursuing the vague trade of a literary man in 
Edinburgh, had declared it to be. It was followed closely 
by a rough cart, in which Beenie and the boxes were packed 
away. They were not large boxes. One, called ‘‘ the hair 
trunk,” contained Lily’s every-day dresses, but no provision 
for any thing beyond the most ordinary needs, for there 
was no society nor any occasion for decorative garments 
on the moors. Beenie’s box was smaller, as became a 
serving-woman. These accessories were all in the fashion 
of their time, which was (like Waverley, yet, ah, so unlike !) 
sixty years since or thereabout — in the age before railways, 
or at least before they had penetrated to the distant por- 
tions of the country. The driver of the gig was a middle- 
aged countryman, very decent in a suit of gray “plaidin” — 
what we now call tweed — with a head of sandy hair grizzled 
and considerably blown about by the wind across the 
moor. His face was ruddy and wrinkled, of the color of a 
winter apple, in fine shades of red and brown, his shaggy 
eyebrows a little drawn together — by the ‘‘ knitting of his 
brows under the glaring sun,” and the setting of his teeth 
against the breeze. He said, ‘‘ Hey, Beenie ! ” as his saluta- 
tion to the party before he doffed his bonnet to the young 
lady. Lily was not sure that it was quite respectful, but 
Dougal meant no disrespect. He was a little shy of her, 
being unfamiliar with her grown-up aspect, and reverential 
of her young ladyhood ; but he was at his ease with Robina, 
who was a native of the parish, the daughter of the late 
blacksmith, and “ weel connectit ” among the rustic folk. 


42 


It would have been an ease to Dougal to have had the 
maid beside him instead of the mistress, and it was to 
Beenie he addressed his first remarks over his shoulder, 
from pure shyness and want of confidence in his own powers 
of entertaining a lady. ‘‘ Ye’ll have had a long journey,” 
he said. ‘‘ The coach she’s aye late. She’s like a thriftless 
lass, Beenie, my woman. She just dallies, dallies at the 
first, and is like to break her neck at the end.” 

But she showed no desire to break her neck, I assure 
you,” said Lily. ^‘She was in no hurry. We have just 
taken it very easy up hill and down dale.” 

‘‘Ay, ay ! ” he said, “ we ken the ways o’ them.” With 
a glance over his shoulder : “Are you sure you’re weel 
happit up, Beenie, for there’s a cauld wind crossing the 
moor ? ” 

“ And how is Katrin, Dougal ? ” Lily asked, fastening 
her cloak up to her throat. 

“Oh, she’s weel eneuch ; you’ll see little differ since ye 
left us last. We’re a wee dried up with the peat-reek, and 
a wee blawn aboot by the wind. But ye’ll mind that fine, 
Beenie woman, and get used to’t like her and me.” 

Lily laid impatient fingers on the reins, pulling Dougal’s 
hand, as if he had been the unsteady rough pon^^ he drove. 
“ Speak to me,” she said, “ you rude person, and not to 
Beenie. Do you think I am nobody, or that I cannot 
understand ? ” 

“ Bless us all ! No such a thought was in my head. 
Beenie, are ye sitting straight ? for when the powny’s first 
started whiles he lets out.” 

“ Let me drive him ! ” Lily cried. “ I’ll like it all the 
better if he lets out ; and you can go behind if you like 
and talk to Beenie at your ease.” 

“Na, na,” said Dougal, with a grin. “He kens wha’s 
driving him. A bit light hand like yours would have very 
sma’ effect upon Rory. Hey, laddies ! get out of my 
powny’s way ! ” 

Rory carried out the prognostics of his driver by tossing 
his shaggy head in the air, and making a dash forward. 


43 


scattering the children who had gathered about to stare at 
the new arrivals ; though before he got to the end of the 
village street he had settled into his steady pace, which 
was quite uninfluenced by any skill in driving on Dougal’s 
part, but was entirely the desire and meaning of that very 
characteristic member of society — himself. The day had 
settled into an afternoon serenity and unusual quietness of 
light. The mountains stood high in the even air, without 
any dramatic changes, Schehallion, with his conical crest, 
dominating the lesser hills, and wearing soberly his mantle 
of purple, subdued by gray. The road lay for a few miles 
through broken ground, diversified with clumps of wood, 
wind-blown firs, and beeches tossing their feathery branches 
in the air, crossing by a little bridge a brown and lively 
trout stream, which went brawling through the village, 
but afterward fell into deeper shadows, penetrating between 
close fir-woods, before it reached the edge of the moor, 
round which it ran its lonely way. Lily’s spirits began to 
rise. The sense of novelty, the pleasant feeling of arrival, 
and of all the possibilities which relieve the unknown, rose 
in her breast. Something would surely happen ; some- 
thing would certainly be found to make the exile less 
heavy, and to bring back a little hope. The little river 
greeted her like an old friend. “ Oh, I remember the 
Rugas,” she cried. What a cheery little water ! Will 
they let me fish in it, Dougal ? Look how it sparkles ! 
I think it must remember me.” 

‘‘It’s just a natural objick,” said Dougal. “It minds 
naebody ; and what would you do — a bit lady thing — fish- 
ing troot ? Hoots ! a crookit pin in a burn would set ye 
better, a little miss like you.” 

In those days there were no ladies who were salmon 
fishers. Such a thing would have seemed to Dougal an 
outrage upon every law. 

“ Don’t be contemptuous,” said Lily, with a laugh. 
“You’ll find I am not at all a little miss. Just give me 
the reins and let me wake Rory up. I mean to ride him 
about the moor.” 


44 


I’m doubting if you’ll do that,” said Dougal, with 
politeness, but reserve. 

Why shouldn’t I do it ? Perhaps you think I don’t 
know how to ride. Oli, you can trust Rory to me, or a 
better than Rory.” 

There’s few better in these parts,” said Dougal with 
some solemnity. ‘‘ He’s a beast that has a great deal of 
judgment. He kens well vvdiat’s his duty in this life. I’m 
no thinking you’ll find it that easy to put him to a new 
kind of work. He has plenty of his ain work to do.” 

“ We’ll see about that,” said Lily. 

“ Ah,” replied Dougal cautiously, we’ll just see about 
that. We must na come to any hasty judgment. Cheer 
up, lad ! Yon’s the half of the road.” 

‘‘Is this only the half of the road ?” said Lily, with a 
shudder. They were coming out of the deep shade of the 
woods, and now before them, in its full width and silence, 
stretched the long levels of the moor. It was even now, 
in these days before the heather, a beautiful sight, with the 
mountains towering in the background, and the bushes of 
the ling, which later in the year would be glorious with 
blossoms, coming down, mingled with the feathery plumes 
of the seeding grass, to the very edge of the road : beau- 
tiful, wild, alive with sounds of insects, and that thrill of 
the air which we call silence — silence that could be heard. 
The wide space, the boundless sky, the freedom of tlie pure 
air, gave a certain exaltation to Lily’s soul, but at the 
same time overwhelmed her with a sense of the great lone- 
liness and separation from all human interests which this 
great vacancy made. “ Only half-way,” she repeated, with 
a gasp. 

“ It’s a gey lang road, but it’s a very good road, with 
few bad bits. An accustomed person need have nae fear 
by night or day. There was an ill place, where ye cross 
the Rugas again, at the head of the Black Scaur ; but it’s 
been mended up just uncommon careful, and ye need have 
nae apprehension ; besides that, there’s me tliat ken every 
step, and Rory that is maist as clever as me.” 


45 


But it’s the end of the world,” Lily said. 

“ No that, nor even the end of the parish, let alone the 
countryside,” said Dougal. It’s just ignorance, a’ that. 
It’s the end o’ naething but your journey, and a bonnie 
place when you’re there ; and a good dinner waiting for 
ye ; and a grand soft bed, and your grandmither’s ain 
cha’lmer, that was one of the grandest leddies in the North 
Country. Na, na, missy, it’s no the end of the world. If ye 
look far ahead, yonder by the east, as soon as we come to 
the turn of the road, ye’ll maybe, if it’s clear, see the tower. 
That’s just a landmark over half the parish. Ye’ll mind 
it, Beenie ? It’s lang or ye’ve seen so bonnie a sight.” 

“ Oh, ay, I mind it,” said Beenie, subdued. She had 
once tliouglit, with Dougal, that the tower of Dalrugas 
was a fine sight. But she had tasted the waters of civiliza- 
tion, and the long level of the moor filled her breast, like 
that of her mistress, with dismay ; though, indeed, it was 
with the eyes of Lily, rather than her own, that the kind 
woman saw this scene. For herself things would not be 
so bad. Dougal and Katrin in the kitchen would form a 
not uncongenial society for Robina. She did not antici- 
pate for herself much difficulty in fitting in again to a 
familiar place ; and she would always have her young mis- 
tress to pet and console, and to take care of. But Lily — 
where would Lily find any thing to take her out of herself ? 
Beenie realized, by force of sympathy, the weary gazing 
from the windows, the vacant landscape, through which no 
one ever would come, the loneliness indescribable of the 
great solitary moor ; not one of her young companions to 
come lightly over the heather ; neither a lad nor lass in 
whom the girl would find a playfellow. ‘‘Ay, I mind 
it,” said Beenie, shaking her head, with big tears filling 
her eyes. 

Lily, for her part, did not feel disposed to shed any 
tears ; her mind was full of indignation and harsher 
thoughts. Who could have any right to banish her here 
beyond sight or meeting of her kind ? And it was not less 
but more bitter to refiect that the domestic tyrant who had 


46 


banished her was scarcely so much to blame as the lover 
who would risk nothing to save her. If he had but stood 
by her — held out his hand — what to Lily would have been 
poverty or humbleness ? She would have been content with 
any bare lodging in the old town, high among the roofs. 
She would have worked her fingers to the bone — at least 
Beenie would have done so, which was the same thing. 
That was a sacrifice she would have made willingly; but 
this that was demanded — who had any right to exact it ? 
and for what was it to be exacted ? For money, miserable 
money, the penny siller that could never buy hajDpiness. 
Lily’s eyes burned like coal. Her cheeks scorched and 
blazed. Oh, how hard was fate, and how undeserved! 
For what had she done ? Nothing, nothing to bring it 
upon herself. 

It was another long hour before the gig turned the 
corner by the trees, where there was a momentary view of 
Dalrugas, and plunged again between the rising banks, 
where the road ran in a deep cutting, ascending the last 
slopes. We’ll be at the house in five minutes,” Doiigal 
said. 


CHAPTER YI 

Katein stood under the doorway, looking out for the 
party : a spare, little, active woman, in that native dress 
of the place, which consisted of a dark woollen skirt and 
pink shortgown,” a garment not unlike the blouse of 
to-day, bound in by the band of her white apron round a 
sufiiciently trim waist. She was of an age when any vanity 
of personal appearance, if ever sanctioned at all, is con- 
sidered, by her grave race, to be entirely out of place ; but 
3^et was trim and neat by effect of nature, and wore the 
shortgown with a consciousness that it became her. A 
gleam of sunshine had come out as the two vehicles 
approached in a little procession ; and Katrin had put up 
her hand to her eyes to shade them from that faint gleam 


47 


of sun as she looked down the road. The less of sun 
there is the more particular people are in shielding them- 
selves from it ; which is a mystery, like so many' other 
things in life, small as well as great. Katrin thought the 
dazzle was overwhelming as she stood looking out under 
the shadow of her curved hand. The doorway was rather 
small, and very dark behind her, and the strong gleam of 
liglit concentrated in her pink shortgown, and made a brill- 
iant spot of the white cap on her head. And to Katrin 
the two vehicles climbing the road were as a crowd, and 
the arrival an event of great excitement, making an era in 
life. She was interested, perliaps, like her husband, most 
particularly in Robina, wlio would be an acquisition to 
their own society, with all her experience of the grand 
life of the South ; but she bore a warm heart also to the 
little lady who liad been at Dalrugas as a child, and of 
whose beauty, and specially of whose accomplishments, 
there had been great reports from the servants in town 
to the servants on the moor. She hastened forward to 
place a stool on which Miss Lily could step down, and held 
out both her hands to help, an offer which was made quite 
unnecessary by the sudden spring which the girl made, 
alighting “like a bird ” by Katrin’s side. “ Eh, I didna 
mind how light a lassie is at your age,” cried the house- 
keeper, startled by that quick descent. “ And are ye very 
wearied ? and have ye had an awfu’ journey ? and, eh, yon- 
der’s Beenie, just the same as ever ! I’m as glad to see ye 
as if I had come into a fortune. Let me take your bit 
bag, my bonnie lady. Give the things to me.” 

“Yes, Beenie is just the same as ever — and you also, 
Katrin, and the moor,” said Lily, with a look that em- 
braced them all. She had subdued herself, with a natural 
instinct of that politeness which comes from the heart, not 
to show these humble people, on her first arrival, how little 
she liked her banishment. It was not their fault ; they 
were eager to do their utmost for her, and welcomed her 
with a kindness which was as near love as any inferior 
sentiment could be — if it was, indeed, an inferior senti- 


48 


merit at all. But when she stood before the dark doorway, 
which seemed the end of all things, it was impossible not 
to betray a little of the loneliness she felt. ‘^And the 
moor,” she repeated. But Katrin heard the words in 
another sense. 

Ay, my bonnie lamb ! the moor, that is the finest sight 
of a’. It’s just beautiful when there’s a fine sunset, as 
we’re going to have the night to welcome ye hame. Come 
away ben, my dear ; come away in to your ain auld house. 
Oh ! but I’m thankful and satisfied to have ye here ! ” 

Not my house, Katrin. My uncle would not like to 
hear you say so.” 

Hoot, away ! Sir Robert’s bark is waur than his bite. 
What would he have sent such orders for, to make every 
thing sae comfortable, if there had been any doubt that it 
was your very ain house, and you his chosen heir? If 
Dougal were to let ye see the letter, a’ full of loving kind- 
ness, and that he wanted a safe hame for his bit lassie while 
he was away. Oh, Miss Lily, he’s an auld man to be 
marching forth again at the head of his troop to the wars.” 

‘‘He is not going to the wars,” said Lily. She could not 
but laugh at the droll supposition. Sir Robert, that lover 
of comfort and luxury, marching forth on any expedition, 
unless it were an expedition of pleasure ! “ There are no 

wars,” she added. “We are at peace with all the world, 
so far as I can hear.” 

“Weel, I was wondering,” said Katrin. “Dougal, he 
says, that reads the papers, that there’s nae fighting neither 
in France nor what they ca’ed the Peninshula in our young 
days. But he says there are aye wars and rumor of 
wars in India, and such like places. So we thought it 
might, maybe, be that. Weel, I’m real content to hear 
that Sir Robert, that’s an old man, is no driven to boot and 
saddle at his age.” 

“He is going, perhaps, to London,” Lily said. 

“ Weel, weel, and that’s no muckle better than a fight, 
from a’ we hear — an awfu’ place, full of a’ the scum of the 
earth. Puir auld gentleman ! It maun be the king’s 


49 


business, or else something very important of his ain, that 
takes him there. Anyway, he’s that particular about you, 
my bonnie lady, as never was. You’re to have a riding- 
horse when ye please, and Dougal to follow you whenever 
he can spare the time ; and there’s a new pianny-fortey 
come in from Perth, and a box full of books, and I canna 
tell you all what. And here am I keeping you at the 
door, havering all the time. You’ll mind the old stair, and 
the broken step three from the top ; or maybe you will 
like to come into the dining-room first and have a morsel 
to stay your stomach till the dinner’s served ; or maybe 

you would like a drink of milk ; or maybe Lord bless 

us! she’s up the stair like a fire flaught and paying no atten- 
tion; and, oh, Beenie, my woman, is this you ? ” 

Beenie was more willing to be entertained than her mis- 
tress, whose sudden flight upstairs left Katrin stranded in 
the full tide of her eloquence. She was glad to be set 
down to a cup of tea and the nice scones, fresh from the 
girdle, with which the housekeeper had intended to tempt 
Lily. I’ll cover them up with the napkin to keep them 
warm, and when ye have ta’en your cup o’ tea, ye’ll carry 
some up to her on a tray, or I’ll do it mysel’, with good 
will ; but I mind ye are aye fondest of taking care of your 
bonnie miss yoursel’.” 

‘‘We’ll gie her a wee moment to settle dowm,” said 
Robina : “ to take a good greet,” was what she said to her- 
self. She swallowed her tea, always with an ear intent on 
the sounds upstairs. She had seen by Lily’s countenance 
that she was able for no more, and that a moment’s inter- 
val was necessary ; and there she sat consuming her heart, 
yet perhaps comforted a little by having the good scones 
to consume, too. “ Oh,” she said, “ ye get nothing like 
this in Edinburgh ; ae scone’s very different from another. 
I have not tasted the like of this for many a year.” 

“ Ye see,” said Katrin, with conscious success, “ a drop 
of skim-milk like what ye get in a town is very different 
from the haill cream of a milking; and I’m no a woman 
to spare pains ony mair than stuff. She’s a bonnie^ bonnio 
4 


50 


creature, your young lady, Beenie — a wee like her mother, 
as far as I mind, that was nothing very much in the way 
of blood, ye ken, but a bonnie, bonnie young woman as 
ever stood. The auld leddy and Sir Robert were real mad 
against Mr. Randall for making such a poor match; but 
now there’s nobody but her bairn to stand atween the 
house and its end. He’ll be rael fond of her. Sir Robert — 
his bonny wee heir ! ” 

‘‘ Ay,” said Beenie, ‘‘ in his ain way.” 

“ Weel, it wasna likely to be in a woman’s way like 
yours or mine. The men they’ve aye their ain ways of 
looking at things. I’ll warrant there’s plenty of lads after 
her, a bonnie creature like that ; and the name of Sir 
Robert’s siller and a’.” 

Oh, ay ! she hasna wanted for lads,” Beenie said. 

And what ’ll be the reason, Beenie, since the auld gen- 
tleman’s no going to the wars, as Dougal and me thought 
— what ’ll be the reason, are ye thinkin’, for the young 
leddy coming here ? He said it was to be safe at hame 
while he was away.” 

Maybe he would be right if that’s what he says.” 

Oh, Beenie, woman,” cried Katrin, ‘‘ you’re secret, 
secret ! Do you think we are no just as keen as you to 
please our young leddy and make her comfortable ? or as 
taken up to ken why she’s been sent away from a’ her 
parties and pleasurings to bide here ? ” 

There’s no many parties nor pleasurings here for her,” 
said Dougal, joining the two women in the low but airy 
kitchen, where the big fire was pleasant to look upon, and 
the brick floor very red, and the hearthstone very white. 
The door, which stood always open, afforded a glimpse of 
the universal background, the everywhere-extending moor, 
and the air came in keen, though the day was a day in 
June. Dougal pushed his bonnet to one side to scratch 
his grizzled head. In these regions, as indeed in many 
others, it is not necessary to take off one’s headgear when 
one comes indoors. There’s neither lad to run after her 
nor leddies to keep her company. If she’s light-headed, or 


51 


the like of that, there canna be a better place than oor 
moor.” 

‘‘Light-headed ! ” said E-obina in high scorn. “It just 
shows how little you ken. And where would I be, a dis- 
creet person, if my young leddy was light-headed ? She’s 
just as modest and as guid as ever set foot on the heather. 
My bonnie wee woman ! And as innocent as the babe 
new-born.” 

Dougal pushed his cap to the other side of his head, as 
if that might afford enlightenment. “ Then a’ I can say 
is that it’s very queer.” And he added after an interval : 
“ I never pretend to understand Sir Robert ; he’s an awfu’ 
funny man.” 

“ He might play off his fun better than upon Miss Lily,” 
said his wife in anxious tones. 

“ And that minds me that I’m just havering here when 
I should be carrying up the tray,” said Beenie. “ Some of 
those cream scones — they’re the nicest; and that fine apple 
jelly is the best I’ve tasted for long. And now the wee 
bit teapot, and a good jug of your nice fresh milk that she 
will, maybe, like better than the tea.” 

“ And my fine eggs — with a yolk like gold, and white 
that is just like curds and cream.” 

“Na,” said Beenie, waving them away, “that would just 
be too much ; let me alone with the scones, and the milk 
and the tea.” 

She went up the spiral stairs, making a cheerful noise 
with her cups and her tray. A noise was pleasant in this 
quiet place. Beenie understood, without knowing how, 
that the little clatter, the sound of some one coming, was 
essential to this new life ; and though her arm was very 
steady by nature, slie made every thing ring with a little 
tinkle of cheerfulness and “ company.” The drawing-room 
of the house, which opened direct from the stairs with 
little more than a broadened step for a landing, was a 
large room occupying all the breadth of the tall gable, 
which was called the tower. It was not high, and the 
windows were small, set in deep recesses, with spare and 


52 


dingy curtains. The carpet was of design unconjectiirable, 
and of dark color worn by use to a deep dinginess of 
mingled black and brown. The only cheerful thing in the 
room was a rug before the fireplace, made of strips of col- 
ored cloth, which was Katrin’s winter work to beguile the 
long evenings, and in which the instinct of self-preserva- 
tion had woven many bits of red, relics or patterns of sol- 
diers’ coats. The eye caught that one spot of color instinc- 
tively. Beenie looked at it as she put down her tray, and 
Lily had already turned to it a dozen times, as if there was 
something good to be got there. The walls were painted 
in panels of dirty green, and hung with a few pictures, 
which made the dinginess hideous — staring portraits 
executed by some country artist, or, older relics still, faces 
which had sunk altogether into the gloom. Three of the 
windows looked out on the moor, one in a corner upon the 
yard, where Rory and his companion were stabled, and 
where there was an audible cackle of fowls, and sometimes 
Katrin’s voice coming and going as if a door were shut 
between you and the sound.” Lily had been roaming 
about, as was evident by the cloak flung in one corner, the 
hat in another, the gloves on the table, the little bag upon 
the floor. She had gravitated, however, as imaginative 
creatures do, to the window, and sat there when Beenie 
entered as if she had been sitting there all her life, gazing 
out upon the monotonous blank of the landscape and 
already unconscious of what she saw. 

‘‘ Well, Miss Lily,” said Robina cheerfully, “ here we are 
at last ; and thankfu’ I am to think that I can sit still the 
day, and get up in peace the morn without eitlier coach or 
boat to make me jump. And here’s your tea, my bonnie 
dear — and cream scones, Katrin’s best, that I have not seen 
the like of since I left Kinloch-Rugas. Edinburgh’s a 
grand place, and many a bonnie thing is there ; and maybe 
we’ll whiles wish ourselves back ; but nothing like Katrin’s 
scones have ye put within your lips for many a day. My 
dear bonnie bairn, come and sit down comfortable at this 
nice little table and get your tea.” 


53 


‘‘ Tea ! ” said Lily ; her lips were quivering, so that a 
laugh was the only escape — or else the other thing. “You 
mind nothing,” she cried, “ so long as you have your tea.” 

“ Weel, it makes up for mari}^ things, that’s true,” said 
Beenie, eager to adopt her young mistress’s tone. “ Bless 
me. Miss Lily, it’s no the moment to take to that weary 
window and just stare across the moor when ye ken well 
there is nothing to be seen. It will be time enough when 
we’re wearied waiting, or when there’s any reasonable 
prospect ” 

“ What do you mean ? ” cried Lily, springing up from 
her seat. “ Reasonable prospect — of what, I would like to 
know ? and weary waiting — for whom ? How dare you 
say such silly words to me? I am waiting for nobody!” 
cried Lily, in her exasperation clapping her hands together, 
“ and there is no reasonable prospect — if it were not to fall 
from the top of the tower, or sink into the peat-moss some 
lucky day.” 

“ You’re awfu’ confident. Miss Lily,” said the maid, “ but 
I’m a great deal older than you are, and it would be a 
strange thing if I had not mair sense. I just tell you 
there’s no saying ; and if the Queen of Sheba was here, she 
could utter no more.” 

“ You would make a grand Queen of Sheba,” said Lily, 
with eyes sparkling and cheeks burning ; “ and what is it 
your Majesty tells me ? for I cannot make head nor tail of 
it for my part.” 

“ I just tell you, there’s no saying,” Beenie repeated 
very deliberately, looking the young lady in the face. 

Poor Lily ! her face was glowing with sudden hope, 
her slight fingers trembled. What did the woman mean 
who knew every thing ? “ When we’re wearied waiting — 

when there’s no reasonable prospect.” Oh, what, what did 
the woman mean ? Had there been something said to her 
that could not be said to Lily? Were there feet already 
on the road, marching hither, hither, bringing love and 
bringing joy ? “ There’s no saying.” A woman like 

Robina would not say that without some reason. It was 


54 


enigmatical ; but what could it mean but something good ? 
and what good could happen but one thing ? Beenie, in 
fact, meant nothing but the vaguest of consolations — she 
had no comfort to give ; but it was not in a woman’s 
heart to shut out imagination and confess that hope was 
over. Who would venture to say that there was no hope, 
any day, any moment, in a young life, of something 
happening which would make all right again ? No oracle 
could have said less ; and yet it meant every thing. Lily, 
in the light of possibility that suddenly sprang up around 
her, illuminating the moor better than the pale sunshine, 
and making this bare and cold room into a habitable place, 
took heart to return to the happy ordinary of existence, 
and remembered that she was hungry and that Katrin’s 
scones were very good and the apple jelly beautiful to 
behold. It was a prosaic result, you may say, but yet it 
was a happy one, for she was very tired, and had great 
need of refreshment and support. She took her simple 
meal which was so pretty to look at — never an inconsidera- 
ble matter on a woman’s table ; the scones wrapped in their 
white napkin, the jug of creamy milk, the glass dish with 
its clear pink jelly. She ate and drank with much satis- 
faction, and then, with Beenie at her side, went wandering 
over the house to see if there was any furniture to be found 
more cheerful than the curtains and carpets in the drawing- 
room. The days of ‘‘ taste ” had not arisen — no fans from 
Japan had yet been seen in England, far less upon the 
moors ; but yet the natural instinct existed to attempt a 
little improvement in the stiff dulness of the place. Lily 
was soon running over all the house with a song on her 
lips — commoner in those da^^s when music was not so care- 
fully cultivated — and a skipping measure in the patter of 
her feet. Hear till her,” said Dougal to Katrin ; ‘‘ our 
peace and quiet’s done.” ^‘Hear till her indeed, ye auld 
crabbit body ! It’s the blessing o’ the Lord come to the 
house,” said Katrin to Dougal. He pushed his cap now to 
one side, now to the other, with a scratch of impartial con- 
sultation what w^as to come of it — but also a secret pleasure 


55 


that brought out a little moisture under his shaggy eye- 
brows. The old pair sat up a full half-hour later, out of 
pure pleasure in the consciousness of the new inmate under 
that roof where they had so long abode in silence. And 
Lily rushed upstairs and down stairs, and thrilled the old 
floor with her hurried feet, but kept always saying over to 
herself those words which were the fountain of content- 
ment — or rather expectation, which is better: ‘‘There’s no 
saying — there’s no saying ! ” If Beenie knew nothing in 
which there was a reasonable hoj)e, how could she have 
suffered herself to speak ? 


CHAPTER VII 

When Lily got up next morning, it was to the cheerful 
sounds of the yard, the clucking of fowls, the voices of the 
kitchen calling to each other, Katrin darting out a sentence 
as she came to the door, Dougal growling a bass order to 
the boy, the sounds of whose hissing and movement over 
his stable-work were as steady as if Rory were being 
groomed like a racer till his coat shone. It is not pleasant 
to be disturbed by Chanticleer and his handmaidens in the 
.middle of one’s morning sleep, nor to hear the swing of 
the stable pails, and the hoofs of the horses, and the shouts 
to each other of the outdoor servants. I should not like 
to have even one window of my bedchamber exposed to 
these noises. But Lily sprang up and ran to the window, 
cheered by this rustic Babel, and looked out with keen 
pleasure upon the rush of the fowls to Katrin’s feet as she 
stood with her apron filled with grain, flinging it out in 
handfuls, and upon the prospect through the stable of the 
boy hissing and rubbing down Rory, who clattered with 
his impatient hoofs and would not stand still to have his 
toilet made. Dougal was engaged in the byre, in some 
more important operations with the cow, whose present 
hope and representative — a weak-kneed, staggering calf — 


56 


looked out from tlie door with that solemn stare of wonder- 
ing imbecility which is often so pathetic. Lily did not 
think of pathos. She was cheered beyond measure to look 
out on all this active life instead of the silent moor. The 
world was continuing to go round all the same, the creat- 
ures had to be fed, the new day had begun — notwith- 
standing that she was banished to the end of the world ; 
and this was no end of the world after all, but just a corner 
of the country, where life kept going on all the same, 
whether a foolish little girl had been to a ball overnight, 
or had arrived in solitude and tears at the scene of her 
exile. A healthful nature has always some spring in it at 
the opening of a new day. 

She went over the place under Katrin’s guidance, when 
she had dressed and breakfasted, and was as ready to be 
amused and diverted as if she had found every thing going 
her own way ; which shows that Lily was no young lady 
heroine, but an honest girl of twenty-two following the 
impulses of nature. The little establishment at Dalrugas 
was not a farm. It had none of the fluctuations, none of 
the anxieties, which befall a humble agriculturist who has 
to make his living out of a few not very friendly acres, 
good year and bad year together. Dougal loved, indeed, to 
grumble when any harm came over the potatoes, or when 
his hay was spoiled, as it generally was, by the rain. He 
liked to pose as an unfortunate farmer, persecuted by the 
elements ; but the steady wages which Sir Robert paid, 
with the utmost regularity, were as a rock at the back of 
this careful couple, whose little harvest was for the sus- 
tenance of their little household, and did not require to be 
sold to produce the ready money of which they stood so 
very little in need. Therefore all was prosperous in the 
little place. The eggs, indeed, produced so plentifully, 
were not much profit in a place where every-body else pro- 
duced eggs in their own barnyards ; but a sitting from 
Katrin’s fowls was much esteemed in the countryside, and 
brought her honor and sometimes a pleasant present in 
kind, which was to the advantage both of her comfort and 


57 


self-esteem. But a calf was a tiling wliicli brought in a 
little money ; and the milk formed a great part of the liv- 
ing of the house in various forms, and when there was any 
over, did good to the poor folk who are always with us, on 
the banks of the Rugas as in other places. Dougal would 
talk big by times about his losses — a farmer, however small, 
is nothing without them ; but his loss sat very lightly on 
his shoulders, and his comfort was great and his little gains 
very secure. The little steading which lurked behind Sir 
Robert’s gray house, and was a quite unthought-of adjunct 
to it, did very well in all its small traffic and barter under 
such conditions. The mission of Dougal and his wife was 
to be there, always ready to receive the master when he 
chose to “ come North,” as they called it, with the shoot- 
ing-party, for whom Katrin always kept her best sheets 
well aired. But Sir Robert had no mind to trust himself 
in the chilly North : that was all very well when a man 
was strong and active, and liked nothing so much as to 
tramp the moor all day, and keep his friends at heck and 
manger. But a man’s friends get fewer as he gets old, and 
other kinds of pleasure attract him. It was perhaps a 
dozen years since he had visited his spare paternal house. 
And Dougal and Katrin had come to think the place was 
theirs, and the cocks and the hens, and the cows and ponies, 
the chief interest in it. But they were no niggards ; they 
would have been glad to see Sir Robert himself had he 
come to pay them a visit ; they were still more glad to see 
Lily, and to make her feel herself the princess, or it might 
be altogether more correct to say the suzerain, under whom 
they reigned. They did not expect her to interfere, which 
made her welcome all the more warm. As for Sir Robert, 
he might perhaps have interfered; but even in the face 
of that doubt Dougal and Katrin would have acted as 
became them, and received him with a kindly welcome. 

‘‘ Ye see, this is where I keep the fowls,” said Katrin. 
‘^It was a kind of a gun-room once ; but it’s a place where 
a shootin’ gentleman never sets his fit, and there’s no a 
gun fired but Dougal’s auld carabeen. What’s the use of 


58 


keeping up tbae empty places, gaun to rack and ruin, with 
grand names till them? Tlie sitting hens are just awfu’ 
comfortable in here ; and as for Cockmaleerie, he mairches 
in and mairches out, like Mr. Smeaton, the school-master, 
tliat has five daughters, besides his wife, and takes his 
walks at the head of them. A cock is wonderful like a 
man. If you just saw the way auld Smeaton turns his 
head, and flings a word now and then at the chattering 
creatures after him ! We’ve put the pig-sty out here. 
It’s no just the place, perhaps, so near the house ; but it’s 
real convenient ; and as the wind is maistly from the east, 
ye never get any smell to speak of. Besides, that’s no the 
kind of smell that does harm. The black powny he’s away 
to the moor for peat ; but there’s Roiy, aye taking another 
rug at his provender. He’s an auld far rant beast. lie’s 
just said to himself, as you or me might do : ‘Here’s a 
stranger come, and I am the carriage-horse ; and let’s just 
make the most of it.’” 

“ He must be very conceited if he thinks himself a 
carriage-horse,” said Lily, with a laugh. 

“ ’Deed, and he’s the only ane ; and no a bad substitute. 
As our auld minister said the day yon young lad was 
preaching : ‘ No a bad substitute.’ I trow no, seeing he’s 
now the assistant and successor, and very well likit ; and 
if it could only be settled between him and Miss Eelen 
there could be naething more to be desired. But that’s 

no the question. About Rory, Miss Lily ” 

“I would much rather hear about Miss Helen. Who is 
Miss Helen ? Is it the minister’s little girl that used to 
come out to Dalrugas to play with me ? ” 

“ She’s a good ten years older than you. Miss Lily.” 

“I don’t think so. I was — how old ? — nine ; and I am 
sure she was not grown up, nor any thing like it. And so 
she can’t make up her mind to take the assistant and suc- 
cessor? Tell me, Katrin, tell me ! I want to hear all the 
story. It is something to find a story here.” 

“There are plenty of stories,” said Katrin ; “and I’ll 
tell you every one of them. But about Miss Eelen. She’s 


59 


a very little thing. You at nine were bigger than she 
was — let us say — at sixteen. There maun be five years 
atween you, and now she’ll be six-and-twenty. No, it’s 
no auld, and she’s but a bairn to look at, and she will 
just be a fine friend for you. Miss Lily ; for though they’re 
plain folk, she has been real well brought up, and away at 
the school in Edinburgh, and plays the pianny, and a’ that 
kind of thing. I liave mail* opinion mysel’ of a good 
seam ; but we canna expect every-body to have that sense.” 

‘‘ And why will she have nothing to say to the assistant 
and successor? and what is his name ?” 

“ His name is Douglas, James Douglas, of a westland 
family, and no that ill-looking, and well likit. Eh, but 
you’re keen of a story. Miss Lily, like a’ your kind. But 
I never said she would have naething to say to him. She 
is just great friends with him. They are aye plotting the- 
gether for the poor folk, as if there was nothing needed 
but a minister and twa-three guid words to make heaven 
on earth. Oh, my bonnie lady, if it could be done as 
easy as that ! There’s that drunken body, Johnny Wright, 
that keeps the merchant’s shop.” Katrin was a well-edu- 
cated woman in her way, and never put f for lo, which is 
the custom of her district ; but she said chop for shop^ an 
etymology which it is unnecessary to follow here. But 
it’s a good intention — a good intention. They are a3^e 
plotting how they are to mend their neighbors ; and the 

strange thing is But, dear, bless us ! what are we to 

be havering about other folk’s weakness when nae doubt 
we have plenty of our ain ? ” 

“ I am not to be cheated out of my story, Katrin. Do 
you mean that the young minister is not a good man 
himself ? ” 

Bless us, no ! that’s not what I mean. He’s just as pious 

a lad and as weel living It’s no that — it’s no that. 

It’s just one o’ thae mysteries that 3^ou’re far o’er-young to 
understand. She’s been keen to mend other folk, poor lass; 
and that the minister should speak to them, and. show them 
the error o’ their ways ! But the dreadful thing is that 


60 


her poor bit heart is just bound up in a lad — a ne’er-do- 
weel, that is the worst of them all. Ob, dinna speak of it. 
Miss Lily, dinna speak of it ! I’ll tell you anither time ; 
or, maybe. I’ll no tell ye at all. Come in and see the kye. 
They’re honest creatures. There’s nothing o’ the deevil 
and his dreadful ways in them.” 

I wouldna be ower sure of that,” said Dougal, who 
came to meet them to the door of the byre, his cap hang- 
ing on to the side of his head, upon one grizzled lock, so 
many pushes and scratches had it received in the heat of 
his exertions. There’s Crummie, just as little open to 
raison as if she were a wuman. No a step will she budge, 
though it’s clean strae and soft lying that I’m offering till 
her. Gang ben, and tiy what ye can do. She’s just 
furious. I canna tell what she thinks, bucking at me, and 
butting at me, as if I was gaun to carry her off to the 
butcher instead of just setting her bed in comfort for her 
trouble. None of the deil in them ! What d’ye say to 
Rory ? He’s a deil a’thegether, from the crown of his 
head to his off leg, the little evil spirit ! And what’s that 
muckle cock ye’re so proud o’ ? Just Satan incarnate, 
that’s my opinion, stampin’ out his ain progeny when 
they’re o’ the same sect as himsel’. Dinna you trust to 
what she saj^^s. Miss Lily. There’s nae place in this world 
where he is not gaun about like a roarin’ lion, seekin’, as 
the Scripture saith, whom he may devour.” 

Eh, man,” said his wife, coming out a little red, yet 
triumphant, “but you’re a poor hand with your doctrines 
and your opinions ! A wheen soft words in poor Crummie’s 
ear, and a clap upon her bonnie broad back, poor woman, 
and she’s as quiet as a lamb. Ye’ve been tugging at her, 
and swearing at her, though I aye tell ye no. Fleeching 
is aye better than fechting, if ye would only believe me 
— whether it’s a woman or a bairn or a poor timorsome 
coo.” 

“Ye’re a’ alike,” said Dougal, with a grunt, returning to 
his work. “ I’m thinking,” he said, pausing to deliver his 
broadside, “that, saving your presence. Miss Lily, weemen 


61 


are just what ye may call the head of the irrational creation. 
It’s men tliat’s a little lower than the angels ; we’re them 
that are made in the image of God. But when ye speak 
o’ the whole creation that groaneth and travaileth, I’m 
thinking ” 

“ Ye’ll just think at your work, and hand your ill tongue 
before the young lady,” cried his wife in high wrath. 
But slie, too, added as he swung away with a big laugh : 

Ony way, by your ain comparison, we’re at the head and 
you’re at the tail. Come away. Miss Lily, and see the 
bonnie doos. There is nae ill speaking among them. I’m 
no so sure,” slie added, Ijowever, when out of hearing of 
her husband, “I’ve heard yon muckle cushat, the one with 
the grand ruff about his neck, swearin’ at his bonnie wifie, 
or else I’m sair mista’en. It’s just in the nature o’ the men- 
kind. They like ye weel enough, but they maun aye be 
gibing at ye, and jeerin’ at ye — but, bless me, a bit young 
thing like you, it’s no to be expeckit ye could understand.” 

The pigeons were very tame, and alighted not only on 
Katrin’s capacious shoulders, who “shoo’d” them off, but 
on Lily’s, who liked the sentiment, and to find herself so 
familiarly accosted by creatures so highly elevated above 
mere cocks and hens — “ the bonnie creatures,” as Katrin 
said, who sidl’d and bridl’d about her, with mincing steps 
and graceful movements. “ The doocot ” was an old gray 
tower, standing apart from the barnyard, in a small field, 
the traditional appendage of every old Scotch house of any 
importance. To come upon Rory afterward, dragging 
after him the boy, by name Sandy, and not unlike, either 
in complexion or shape, to the superior animal whom he 
was supposed to be taking out for exercise, brought back, 
if not the former discussion on the prevalence of evil, at 
least a practical instance of “ the deevil ” that was in 
the pony, and was an additional amusement. Lily made 
instant trial of the feminine ministrations which had been 
so effective with the cow, whispering in Rory’s ear, and 
stroking his impatient nose, without, however, any 
marked effect. 


62 


He’ll soon get used to ye,” Katrin said consolingly, 
‘^and then you’ll can ride him down to the town, and 
make your bit visits, and get any thing tliat strikes your 
fancy at the shop. Oh, you’ll find there’s plenty to divert 
ye, my bonnie leddy, when once ye are settled down.” 

Would it be so? Lily felt, in the courage of the 
morning, that it might be possible. She resolved to be 
good, as a child resolves ; there should be no silly despair, 
no brooding nor making the worst of things. She would 
interest herself in the beasts and the birds, in Rory, the 
pony, and Crummie, the cow. She would always have 
something to do. Her little school accomplishment of 
drawing, in which she had made some progress according 
to the drawing-master, she would take that up again. 
The kind of drawing Lily had learned consisted in little 
more than copying other drawings ; but that, when it had 
been carefully done, had been thought a great deal of at 
school. And then there was the fine fancy-work which 
had been taught her — the wonderful things in Berlin 
wool, which was adapted to so many purposes, and 
occupied so large a share of feminine lives. Miss Mar- 
tineau, that strong-minded politician and philosopher, 
amused her leisure with it, and why should not Lily ? 
But Berlin patterns, and all the beautiful shades of the 
wool, could not, alas ! be had on Dalrugas moor. Lily 
decided bravely that she would knit stockings at least, and 
that practice would soon overcome that difficulty about 
turning the heel which had damped her early efforts. 
She would knit warm stockings for Sir Robert — warm and 
soft as he liked them — ribbed so as to cling close to his 
handsome old leg, and show its proportions, and so, per- 
haps, touch his heart. And then there would, no doubt, 
turn up, from time to time, something to do for the poor 
folk. Surely, surely there would be employment enough 
to ‘Hceep her heart.” Then she would go to Kinloch- 
Rugas and see Miss Eelen,” Helen Blythe, the minister’s 
daughter, whom she remembered well, with the admiration 
of a little girl for one much older than herself. Here was 


63 


something that would interest lier and occupy her mind, 
and prevent her from thinking. And then there were tlie 
old books in the library, in whicli she feared there would 
be little amusement, but probably a great many good 
books that she had not read, and what a fine opportunity 
for her to improve her mind ! Her present circumstances 
were quite usual features in the novels before the age of 
Sir Walter : a residence in an old castle or other lonely 
house, where a persecuted heroine had the best of reading, 
and emerged quite an accomplished woman, was the com- 
monest situation. She said to herself that there would 
be plenty to do, that she would not leave a moment with- 
out employment, that her life would be too busy and too 
full to leave any time for gazing out at that window, 
watching the little bit of road, and looking, looking for 
some one who never came. Having drawn up this useful 
programme, and decided how she was to spend every day, 
Lily, poor Lily, all alone — even Beenie having gone down 
stairs for a long talk with Katrin — seated herself, quite 
unconsciously, at the window, and gazed and gazed, with- 
out intermission, at the little corner of the road that 
climbed the brae, and across the long level of the 
unbroken moor. 


CHAPTER VIII 

The days that succeeded were very much like this first 
day. In the morning Lily went out among the beasts,” 
and visited, with all the interest she could manage to 
excite in herself, the byre and the stable, the ponies and 
the cows. She persuaded herself into a certain amusement 
in contrasting the very different characters of Rory, the 
spoiled and superior, with that little sturdy performer of 
duty without vagary, who had not even a name to bless 
himself with, but was to all and sundry the black powny 
and no more. Poor little black powny, he supported 
Rory’s airs without a word; he gave in to the fact that he 


64 


was the servant and his stable companion the gentleman. 
He went to the moor for peat, and to the howe for 
potatoes, and to the town for whatever was wanted, with- 
out so much as a toss of his shaggy head. Nothing tired 
the black powny, any more than any thing ever tired the 
‘‘buoy” who drove and fed and groomed him, as much 
grooming as he ever had. Sandy was the “buoy,” just 
as his charge was the black powny. They went every- 
where together, lived together, it was thought even 
slept together ; and though the “ buoy ” in reality occu- 
pied the room above the stable, which was entered by a 
ladder — the loft, in common parlance — the two shaggy 
creatures were as one. All these particulars Lily learned, 
and tried to find a little fun, a little diversion in them. 
But it was a thin vein and soon exhausted, at least by her 
preoccupied mind. 

The post came seldom to this place at the end of the 
world. It never indeed came at all. When there were 
other errands to do in the village, the buoy and the black 
powny called at the post-office to ask for letters — when 
they remembered ; but very often Sandy did not mind, 

6., recollect, to do this, and it did not matter much. Sir 
Robert, indeed, had made known his will that there were 
to be no letters, and correspondence was sluggish in those 
days. Lily had not bowed her spirit to the point of 
promising that she would not write to whomsoever she 
pleased, but she was too proud to be the first to do so, and, 
save a few girl epistles for which, poor child, she did not 
care, and which secured her only a succession of disap- 
pointments, nothing came to lighten her solitude. No, 
she would not write first, she would not tell him her 
address. He could soon find that out if he wanted to find 
it. Sir Robert Ramsay was not nobody, that there should 
be any trouble in finding out where his house was, however 
far off it might be. Poor Lily, when she said this to her- 
self, did not really entertain a doubt that Ronald would 
manage to write to her. But he did not do so. The post 
came in at intervals, the powny and the boy went to the 


65 


town, and minded or did not mind to call for the letters : 
but what did it matter when no letters ever came ? Ah, 
one from Sir Robert, hoping she found the air of the moor 
beneficial ; one from a light-hearted school-fellow, narrat- 
ing all the dances there had been since Lily went away, and 
the last new fashion, and how like Alice Scott it was to be 
the first to appear in it. But no more. This foolish little 
epistle, at first dashed on the ground in her disappoint- 
ment, Lily went over again, through every line, to see 
whether somewhere in a corner there did not lurk the name 
which she was sick with longing to see. It might so 
easily have been here : I danced with Ronald Lumsden 
and he was telling me,” or, Ronald Lumsden called and 
was asking about you.” Such a crumb of refreshment as 
that Lily would have been glad of ; but it never came. 

Yet she struggled bravely to keep up her heart. One 
of those early days, after sundry attempts on the moor, 
where she gradually vanquished him, Lily rode Rory into 
Kinloch-Rugas with only a few controversies on the way. 
She was light and she was quiet, making no clattering at 
his heels as the gig did, and by degrees Rory habituated 
himself to the light burden and the moderate amount of 
control which she exercised over him. It amused him after 
a while to see the whisk of her habit, which proved to be 
no unknown drag or other mechanism, but really a harm- 
less thing, not heavy at all, and as she gave him much of 
his own way and lumps of sugar and no whip to speak of, 
he became very soon docile — as docile as his nature per- 
mitted — and gave her only as much trouble as amused Lily. 
They went all the way to the toun together, an incon- 
gruous but friendly pair, he pausing occasionally when a 
very tempting mouthful of emerald-green grass appeared 
among the bunches of ling, she addressing him with 
amiable remonstrances as Dougal did, and eventually 
touching his point of honor or sense of shame, so that he 
made a little burst of unaccustomed speed, and got over 
a good deal of ground in the stimulus thus applied. He 
was not like the trim and glossy steeds on which, with her 
5 


66 


long habit reaching half-way to the ground, and a careful 
groom behind, Lily had ridden out with Sir Robert in the 
days of her grandeur, which already seemed so far off. 
But she was, perhaps, quite as comfortable in the tweed 
skirt, in which she could spring unfettered from Rory’s 
back and move about easily without yards of heavy cloth 
to carry. The long habit and the sleek steed and the 
groom turned out to perfection would have been out of 
place on the moor ; but Rory, jogging along with his rough 
coat, and his young mistress in homespun were entirely 
appropriate to the landscape. 

It required a good many efforts, however, before the 
final code of amity was established between them, the rule 
of bearing and forbearing, which encouraged Lily to so long 
a ride. When she slipped off his back at the Manse door, 
Rory tossed his shaggy head with an air of relief, and 
looked as if he might have set off home immediately to 
save himself further trouble ; but he thought better of it 
after a moment and a few lumps of sugar, and was soon in 
the careful hands of the minister’s man, who was an old 
and intimate friend, and on the frankest terms of remon- 
strance and advice. Lily was not by any means so famil- 
iar in the minister’s house. She went through the little 
ragged shrubbery where the big straggling lilac bushes 
were all bare and brown, and the berries of the rowan- 
trees beginning to redden, but every thing unkempt and 
ungracious, the stems burned, and the leaves blown away 
before their time by an unfriendly wind. The monthly 
rose upon the house made a good show with its delicate 
blossoms, looking far too fragile for such a place, yet 
triumphant in its weakness over more robust flowers ; and 
a still more fragile-looking but tenacious and inde- 
structible plant, the great white bindweed or wild convol- 
vulus, covered the little porch with its graceful trails of 
green, and delicate flowers, which last so short a time, yet 
form so common a decoration of the humblest Highland 
cottages. Lily paused to look through the light lines of 
the climbing verdure as she knocked at the Manse door. 


67 


It was so unlike anything that could be expected to bloom 
and flourish in the keen northern air. It gave her a sort 
of consoling sense that other things as unlike the sternness 
of the surroundings might be awaiting her, even here, at 
the end of the world. 

And nothing could have been more like the monthly rose 
on the dark gray wall of the Manse than Helen Blythe, 
who came out of the homely parlor to greet Lily when she 
heard who the visitor was. “ Miss .Eelen ” was Lily’s 
senior by even more than had been supposed, but she did 
not show any sign of mature years. She was very light of 
figure and quick of movement, with a clear little morning 
face extremely delicate in color, mild brown eyes that 
looked full of dew and freshness, and soft brown hair. 
She came out eagerly, her “ seam ” in her hand, a mass of 
whiteness against her dark dress, saying, “ Miss Ramsay, 
Dalrugas ? ” with a quick interrogative note, and then 
Helen threw down her work and held out both her hands. 
‘‘ Oh, my bonnie little Lily,” she cried in sweet familiar 
tones. “ And is it you ? and is it really you ? ” 

‘‘ I think I should have known you anywhere,” said 
Lily. “ You are not changed, not changed a bit ; but I am 
not little Lily any longer. I am a great deal bigger than 
you.” 

“You always were, I think,” said Helen, “ though you 
were only a bairn and me a little, little woman, nearly a 
woman, when you were here last. Come ben, my dear, 
come ben and see papa. He does not move about much or 
he would have come to welcome you. But wait a moment 
till I get my seam, and till I find my thimble ; it’s fallen 
off my finger in the fulness of my heart, for I could not 
bide to think about that when I saw it was you. And, oh, 
stand still, my dear, or you’ll tramp upon it ! and it’s my 
silver thimble and not another nearer than Aberdeen.” 

“ I’ve got one,” cried Lily, “ and you shall have it, 
Helen, for I fear, I fear it is not so very much use to 
me.” 

“Oh, whisht, my dear. You must not tell me you don’t 


68 


like your seam. How would the house go on, and what 
would folk do without somebody to sew ? For my part I 
<}ould not live without my seam. Canny, canny, my 
bonnie woman, there it is ! They are just dreadful things 
for running into corners — almost as bad as a ring. But 
there is a mischief about a ring that is not in a thimble,” 
said Helen, rising, with her soft cheeks flushed, having 
rescued the errant thimble from the floor. 

‘‘ And are you always at your seam,” said Lily, just 
as you were when I was little, and you used to come to 
Dalrugas to play ? ” 

I don’t think you were ever so little as me,” said 
Helen with her rustic idiom and accent, her low voice and 
her sweet look, both as fresh as the air upon the moor. She 
did not reach much higher than Lily’s shoulder. She had 
the most serene and smiling face, full, one would have 
said, of genuine ease of heart. Was this so ? or was her 
mind full, as Katrin had said, of unhappy love and anxious 
thoughts ? But it was impossible to believe so, looking 
at this soft countenance, the mouth which had not a line, 
and the eyes which had not a care. 

Nowadays the humblest dwelling which boasts two 
rooms to sit in possesses a dining-room and drawing-room, 
but at that period drawing-rooms were for grand houses 
only, and the parlor was the name of the family dwelling- 
place. It was very dingy, if truth must be told. The 
furniture was of heavy mahogany, with black hair-cloth. 
Though it was still high summer, there was a fire in the 
old-fashioned black grate, and close beside, in his black 
e2i8y chair, was the minister, a heavy old man with a bad 
leg, who was no longer able to get about, and indeed did 
very little save criticise the actions of his assistant and 
successor, a man of new-fangled ways and ideas unlike his 
own. He had an old plaid over his shoulders, for he was 
chilly, and a good deal of snuff hanging about the lapels 
of his coat. His countenance was large and fresh-colored, 
and his hair white. In those days it was not the fashion 
to wear a beard. 


69 


So that’s Miss Lily from the town,” he said. 
‘‘ Come away ben, come ben. Set a chair by the fire for 
the young lady, Eelen, for she’ll be cold coming off the 
moor. It’s always a cold bit, the moor. Many a cough 
I’ve catched there when I was more about the countryside 
than I am now. Old age and a meeserable body are sore 
hindrances to getting about. Ye know neither of them, 
my young friend, and I hope you’ll never know.” 

“ Well, papa, it is to be hoped Lily will live to be old, 
for most folk desires it,” said Helen. Papaw^ a harsh 
reporter would have considered her to say, but it was not 
so broad as a w; it was more like two a^s — papaa — which 
she really said. She smiled very benignantly upon the old 
gentleman and the young creature whom he accosted. 
The name of gout was never mentioned, was, indeed, con- 
sidered an unholy thing, the product of port-wine and 
made dishes, and not to be laid to the account of a clergy- 
man. But Mr. Blythe contemplated with emotion, sup- 
ported on his footstool, the dimensions of a much swollen 
, toe. 

“ Well,” said he, I hope she’ll never live to have the 
rose in her foot, or any other ailment of the kind. And 
how’s Sir Robert, my dear ? Him and me are neighbor- 
like ; there is not very much between us. Is he coming 
N"orththis year to have a pop at the birds, or is he thinking 
like me, I wonder, that a good easy chair by the fire is the 
best, thing for an auld man ? and a brace of grouse well 
cooked and laid upon a toast more admirable than any 
number of them on the moor ? ” 

“ I don’t think he is coming for the shooting,” said 
Lil}^, doubtful. Sir Robert was in many respects what 
was then called a dandy, and any thing more unlike the 
exquisite arrangements for his comfort, carried out by his 
valet, than the old clergyman’s black cushion and footstool 
and smouldering fire could not be. 

You’ll have had an illness yourself,” said the minister, 
“ though you do not look like it, I must say. Does she, 
now, Eelen, with a color like that ? But your uncle would 


70 


have done better, my dear, to take yon travelling, or some 
place where ye would have seen a little society and young 
persons like yourself, than to send you here. He’ll maybe 
have forgotten what a quiet place it is, and no fit for the 
like of you. But I’ll let him know. I’ll let him know as 
soon as he comes up among us, which no doubt he will 
soon do now.” 

“ Now, papa,” said Helen, ‘‘ you will just let Sir Robert 
alone, and no plot with him to carry Lily away from me : 
for I am counting very much upon her for company, and 
it will do her no harm to get the air of the moor for a 
while and forget all the dissipations of Edinburgh. You 
will have to tell me all about them, Lily, for I’m the coun- 
try mouse that has never been away from home. Eh,” 
said Helen, ‘‘ I have no doubt every thing is far grander 
when you’re far off from it than when you’re near. I dare 
say you were tired of the Edinburgh parties, and I would 
just give a great deal to see one of them. And most likely 
you thought the Tower would be delightful, while we are 
only thinking how dull it will be for you. That is aye 
the way ; what we have we think little of, and what we 
have not we desire.” 

‘‘ I was not tired,” said Lily, ‘‘ except sometimes of the 
grand dinners that Uncle Robert is so fond of, and I can- 
not say that I expected the Tower to be delightful ; but 
you know I have no father of my own, and I must just do 
what I am told.” 

“ My dear,” said the old minister, ‘‘ I see you have a 
fine judgment ; for if you had a father of your own, like 
Eelen there, you would just turn him round your little 
finger ; and I’m much surprised you don’t do the same, a 
fine creature like you, with your uncle too.” 

Whisht, papa,” said Helen ; we’ll have in the tea, 
which you know you’re always fond of to get a cup when 
you can, and it ’ll be a refreshment to Lily after her ride. 
And in the meantime you can tell her some of your stories 
to make her laugh, for a laugh’s a fine thing for a young 
creature whatsoever it’s about, if it’s only havers.” 


71 


“ Which my anld stories are, ye think ? ” said the 
minister. “ Go away, go away and mask your tea. Miss 
Lily and me will get on very well without you. I’ll tell 
ye no stories. They are all very old, and the most of them 
are printed. If I were to entertain ye with my anecdotes 
of auld ministers and beadles and the like, ye would per- 
haps find them again in a book, and ye would say to your- 
self, ‘ Eh, there’s the story Mr. Blythe told me, as if it 
was out of his own head,’ and you would never believe in 
me more. But for all that it’s no test being in a book; 
most of mine are in books, and yet they are mine, and it 
was me that put them together all the same. But I have 
remarked that our own concerns are more interesting to us 
than the best of stories, and I’m a kind of spiritual father 
to you, my dear. If I did not christen you, I christened 
your father. Tell me, now that Eelen’s out of the way, 
what is it that brought ye here ? Is it something about 
a bonnie lad, my bonnie young lass ? for that’s the com- 
monest cause of banishment, and as it cannot be carried 
out with the young man, it’s the poor wee lassies that have 
the brunt to bear ” 

“ I never said,” cried Lily, angry tears coming to her 
eyes, ‘‘ that there was any reason or that it was for punish- 
ment. I just came here because — because Uncle Robert 
wanted me to come,” she added in a little burst of indig- 
nation, yet dignity; “ and nobody that I know has a right 
to say a word.” 

“ Just so,” said Mr. Blythe; he wanted you, no doubt, 
to give an eye to Dougal and Katrin, who might be taking 
in lodgers or shooting the moors for their own profit for any 
thing that he can tell. He’s an auld-farrant chield. Sir 
Robert. He would not say a word to you, but he would 
reckon that you would find out.” 

“ Mr. Blythe,” cried Lily with fresh indignation, if 
you think my uncle sent me here for a spy, to find out 
things that do not exist ” 

“ No, my dear, I don’t, I don’t,” said the minister. I 
am satisfied he has a mind above that, and you too. But 


he’s not without a thread of suspicion in him ; indeed, he’s 
like most men of his years and experience, and believes in 
nobody. No, no, Dougal does not put the moor to profit, 
which might be a temptation to many men ; but he has 
plenty of sport himself in a canny way, and there’s a great 
deal of good game just wasted. You may tell Sir Robert 
that from his old friend. Just a great deal of good game 
wasted. He should come and bring a few nice lads to 
divert you, and shoot the moor himself.” 

“ That’s just one of papa’s crazes,” said Helen, return- 
ing with her teapot in her hand, the tray, with all its jin- 
gling cups and saucers, having been put on the table in the 
meantime. “ He thinks the gentlemen should come back 
from wherever they are, or whatever they may be doing, 
to shoot the moors. It would certainly be far more cheery 
for the countryside, but very likely Sir Robert cares noth- 
ing about the moor, and is just content with the few brace 
of grouse that Dougal sends him. I believe it’s considered 
a luxury and something grand to put on the table in other 
places, but we have just too much of it here. Now draw 
to the table and take your tea. The scones are just made, 
and I can recommend the shortbread, and you must be 
wanting something after your ride. I have told John to 
give the powny a feed, and you will feel all the better, the 
two of you, for a little rest and refreshment. Draw in 
to the table, my bonnie dear.” 

These were before the days of afternoon tea ; but the 
institution existed more or less, though not in name, and 
“the tea” was administered before its proper time or 
repeated with a sense of guilt in many houses, where the 
long afternoon was the portion of the day which it was 
least easy to get through — when life was most languid, and 
occupation at a lull. Lily ate her shortbread with a girl’s 
appetite, and took pleasure in her visit. When she 
mounted Rory again and set forth on her return, she asked 
herself with great wonder whether it was possible that 
there could be any thing under that soft aspect of Helen 
Blythe, her serene countenance and delicate color, which 


73 


could in any way correspond with the trouble and commo- 
tion in her own young bosom ? Helen had, indeed, her 
father to care for, she was at home, and had, no doubt, 
friends ; but was it possible that a thought of some one 
who was not there lay at the bottom of all ? 

Lily confessed to Robina when she got home that she 
had been much enlivened by her visit, and that Helen was 
coming to see her, and that all would go well ; but when 
Beenie, much cheered, went down stairs to her tea, Lily 
unconsciously drew once more to that window, that watch- 
tower, from which nobody was ever visible. The moor 
lay in all the glory of the evening, already beginning to 
warm and glow with the heather, every bud of which 
awoke to brightness in the long rays of the setting sun. 
It was as if it came to life as the summer days wore toward 
autumn. The mountains stood round, blue and purple, 
in their unbroken veil of distance and visionary greatness, 
but the moor was becoming alive and full of color,, warm- 
ing out of all bleakness and grayness into life and light. 
The corner of the road under the trees showed like a peep 
into a real world, not a dreary vacancy from which no one 
came. There was a cart slowly toiling its way up the 
slope, its homely sound as it came on informing the silence 
of something moving, neighborly, living. Lily smiled 
unconsciously as if it had been a friend. And when the 
cart had passed, there appeared a figure, alone, walking 
quickly, not with the slow wading, as if among the heather, 
of the rare, ordinary passer-b}’. Lily’s interest quickened 
in spite of herself as she saw the wayfarer breasting the 
hill. Who could he be, she wondered. Some sportsman, 
come for the grouse — some gentleman, trained not only 
to moorland walking, but to quick progress over smoother 
roads. He skimmed along under the fir-trees at the 
corner, up the little visible ascent. Lily almost thought 
she could hear his steps sounding so lightly, like a half- 
forgotten music that she was glad, glad to hear again ; 
but he disappeared soon under the rising bank, as every 
thing did, and she was once more alone in the world. The 


74 


sun sank, the horizon turned gray, the moor became once 
more a wilderness in which no life or movement was. 

No ! — what a jump her heart gave ! — it was no wilder- 
ness : there was the same figure again, stepping out on the 
moor. It had left the road, it was coming on with springs 
and leaps over the heather toward the house. Who was it ? 
Who was it ? And then he, he ! held up his hand and 
beckoned, beckoned to Lily in the wilderness. Who was 
he? Nobody — a wandering traveller, a sportsman, a 
stranger. Her heart beat so wildly that the whole house 
seemed to shake with it. And there he stood among the 
heather, his hat off, waving it, and beckoning to her with 
his hand. 


CHAPTER IX 

The situation of Ronald Lumsden, for whom Lily felt 
herself to have sacrificed so much, and who showed, as she 
felt at the bottom of her heart, so little inclination to 
sacrifice any thing for her, was, in reality, a difficult one. 
It would have been false to say that he did not love her, 
that her loss was no grief to him, or that he could make 
himself comfortable without her — which was what various 
persons thought and said, and he was not unaware of the 
fact. Neither was he unaware that Lily herself had a half 
grudge, a whole consciousness, that the way out of the diffi- 
culty was a simple one ; and that he should have been 
ready to offer her a home, even though it would not be 
wealthy, and the protection of a husband’s name and care 
against all or any uncles in the world. He knew that she 
was quite willing to share his poverty, that she had no 
objection to what is metaphorically called a garret — and 
would really have resembled one more than is common in 
such cases : a little flat, high up under the roofs of an 
Edinburgh house — and to make it into a happy and smil- 
ing little home. And as a matter of fact that garret would 
not have been inappropriate, or have involved any social 


75 


downfall either on his side or Lily’s. Young Edinburgh 
advocates in those days set up their household gods in 
such lofty habitations without either shame or reluctance. 
Not so very long before the man whom we and all the 
world know as Lord Jeffrey set out in the world on that 
elevation and made his garret the centre of a new kind of 
empire. There was nothing derogatory in it : invitations 
from the best houses in Edinburgh would have found their 
way there as freely as to George Square ; and Lily’s 
friends and his own friends would have filled the rooms as 
much as if the young pair had been lodged in a palace. 
He could not even say to himself that there would have 
been privations which she did not comprehend in such a 
life ; for, little though they had, it would have been 
enough for their modest wants, and there was a prospect 
of more if he continued to succeed as he had begun to do. 
Many a young man in Edinburgh had married rashly on 
as little and had done very well indeed. All this Ronald 
knew as well as any one, and the truth of it rankled in his 
mind and made him unhappy. And yet on the other 
side there was, he felt, so much to be said ! Sir Robert 
Ramsay’s fortune was not a thing to be thrown away, and 
to compare the interest, weight, and importance of that 
with the suffering involved to young people who were sure 
of each other in merely waiting for a year or two was 
absurd. According to all laws of experience and life it 
was absurd. Lily was very little over twenty ; there was 
surely no hurry, no need to bring affairs to a climax, to 
insist on marrying when it would no doubt be better even 
for her to wait. This was what Lumsden said to himself. 
He would rather, as a matter of preference, marry at once, 
secure the girl he loved for his life-companion, and do the 
best he could for her. But when all things were con- 
sidered, would it be sensible, would it be right, would it 
be fair ? 

This was how he conversed with himself during many a 
lonely walk, and the discussion would break out in the 
midst of very different thoughts, even on the pavement of 


76 


the Parliament House as he paced up and down. Sir 
Robert’s fortune — that was a tangible thing. It meant in 
the future, probably in the near future, for Sir Robert was 
a self-indulgent old man, a most excellent position in the 
world, safety from all pecuniary disasters, every comfort 
and luxury for Lily, who would then be a great lady in 
comparison with the struggling Edinburgh advocate. 
And the cost of this was nothing but a year’s, a few 
years’, waiting for a girl of twenty-two and a young man 
of twenty-eight. How preposterous, indeed, to discuss the 
question at all ! If Lily had any feeling of wrong in that 
her lover did not carry her off, did not in a moment arrange 
some makeshift of a poor life, the prelude to a continual, 
never-ending struggle, it could only be girlish folly on 
Lily’s part, want of power to perceive the differences and 
the exj^ediencies. Could any thing be more just than this 
reasoning ? There is no one in his senses who would 
not agree in it. To wait a year or two at Lily’s age — what 
more natural, more beneficial ? He would have felt that 
he was taking advantage of her inexperience if he had 
urged her to marry him at such a cost. And waiting cost 
nothing, at least to him. 

Not very long after Lily left Edinburgh Lumsden had 
encountered Sir Robert one evening at one of the big 
dinner-parties which were the old gentleman’s chief 
pleasure, and he had taken an opportunity to address the 
young fellow on the subject which could not be forgotten 
between them. He warned Lumsden that he would permit 
no nonsense, no clandestine correspondence, and that it 
was a thing which could not be done, as his faithful ser- 
vants at Dalrugas kept him acquainted with every thing 
that passed, and he would rather carry his niece away to 
England or even abroad (that word of fear and mystery) 
than allow her to make a silly and unequal marriage. 
‘‘ You are sensible enough to understand the position,” 
the old man had said. From all I hear of you you are 
no hot-headed young fool. What 3^011 would gain your- 
self would be only a wife quite unused to shifts and stress 


77 


of weather, and probably a mere burden upon you, with 
her waiting-woman serving her hand and foot, and her 
fine-lady ways — not the useful helpmate a struggling man 
requires.” 

“ I should not be afraid of that,” said Lumsden, with 
a pale smile, for no lover, however feeble-hearted, likes to 
liear such an account of his love, and no youth on the 
verge of successful life can be any thing but impatient to 
hear himself described as a struggling man. “ 1 expect 
to make my way in my profession, and I have reason to 
expect so. And Lily ” 

‘‘ Miss Ramsay, if you please. She is a fine lady to the 
tips of her fingers. She can neither dress nor eat nor 
move a step without Robina at her tail. She is not fitted, 
I tell you, for the wife of a struggling man.” 

“But suppose I tell you,” cried Lumsden with spirit, 
“ that I shall be a struggling man only for a little while, 
and that she is in every way fitted to be my wife ? ” 

“ Dismiss it from your mind, sir ; dismiss it from your 
mind,” said Sir Robert. “ What will the world say ? and 
what the world says is of great consequence to a man that 
has to struggle, even if it is only at the beginning. They 
will say that you’ve worked upon a girl’s inexperience 
and beguiled her to poverty. They will say that she did 
not know what she was doing, but you did. They will 
say you were a fool for your own sake, and they will say 
you took advantage of her.” 

“ All which things will be untrue,” said Lumsden 
hotly. 

But then they were disturbed and no more was said. 
This conversation, though so brief, was enough to fill a 
man’s mind with misgivings, at least a reasonable man’s, 
prone to think before and not after the event. Lumsden 
was not one that is carried away by impulse. The first 
effect was that he did not write, as he had intended, to 
Lily. What was the use of writing if Sir Robert’s faith- 
ful servants would intercept the letters ? Why run any 
risk when there lay behind the greater danger of having 


78 


her carried off to England or abroad,” where she might 
be lost and never heard of more ? Ronald pondered all 
these things much, but his pondering was in different cir- 
cumstances from Lily’s. She had nothing to divert her 
mind ; he had a great deal. Society had ended for her, 
but it was in full circulation, and he had his full share in 
every thing, where he was. The pressure is very different 
in cases so unlike. The girl had nothing to break the 
monotony of hour after hour, and day after day. The 
young man had a full and busy life : so long in the Parlia- 
ment House, so long in his chambers ; a consultation ; a 
hard piece of mental work to make out a case ; a cheerful 
dinner in. the evening with some one ; a wavering circle of 
other men always more or less surrounding him. The dif- 
ficulty was not having too much time to think, but how to 
have time enough; and the season of occupation and com- 
pany and events hurried on so that when he looked back 
upon a week it appeared to him like a day. And he had no 
way of knowing how it lingered with Lily. He wondered 
a little and felt it a grievance that she did not write to him, 
which would have been so very easy. There were no faith- 
ful servants on his side to intercept letters. She might 
have at least sent him a line to announce her safe arrival, 
and tell him how the land lay. He on his side could quite 
endure till the Vacation, when he had made up his mind 
to do something, to have news of her somehow. Even 
this determination made it more easy for him to defer 
writing, to make no attempt at communication; for why 
warn Sir Robert’s servants and himself of what he in- 
tended to do, so that they might concert means to balk 
him ? whereas it was so very doubtful whether any thing 
he sent would reach Lily. Thus he reasoned with himself, 
with always the refrain that a year or two of waiting at his 
own age and Lily’s could do no one any harm. 

Yet Ronald was but mortal, though he was so wise. 
Sir Robert left Edinburgh, going to pay his round of visits 
before he went abroad, which he invariably did every 
autumn. There was no Monte Carlo in those days, and old 


79 


gentlemen had not acquired the habit of sunning them- 
selves on the Riviera ; but, on the other hand, there was 
much more to attract them at the German baths, which 
had many of the attractions now concentrated at Monte 
Carlo ; and Florence possessed a court and society where 
life went on in that round of entertainment and congrega- 
tion which is essential to old persons of the world. Sir 
Robert disappeared some time before the circles of the 
Parliament House broke up, and young Lumsden was thus 
freed from the disagreeable consciousness of being more 
or less under the personal observation of his enemy. And 
he loved Lily, though he was willing to wait and to be 
temporarily separated from her in the interests of their 
future comfort and Sir Robert’s fortune. So that, when 
he was released from his work, and free to direct his move- 
ments for a time as he pleased, an attraction which he 
could not resist led him to the place of his lady’s exile. 
All the good reasons which his ever-working mind brought 
forth against this were, I am happy to say, ineffectual. 
He said to himself that it was a foolish thing ; that if 
reported to Sir Robert — and how could it fail to be 
reported to Sir Robert, since his servants were so faithful, 
and it would be impossible to keep them in the dark ? — 
would only precipitate every thing and lead to Lily’s trans- 
fer to a safer hiding-place. He repeated to himself that 
to wait for a year or two at twenty -two and at twenty- 
eight was no real hardship : it was rather an advantage. 
But none of these wise considerations affected his mind as 
they ought to have done. He had a hunger and thirst 
upon him to see the girl he loved. He wanted to make 
sure that she was there, that there was a Lily in the 
world, that eventually she would be his and share his life. 
It was plus fort que lui. 

He went home, however, as in duty bound, to the spare 
old house on the edge of the Highlands, where he and all his 
brothers and sisters had been born and bred ; where there 
was a little shooting, soon exhausted by reason of the 
many guns brought to bear upon it, and a good deal of 


80 


company in a homely way, impromptu dances almost every 
night, as is the fashion in a large family, which attracts 
young people round it far and near. But in all this simple 
jollity Ronald only felt more the absence of his love, and 
the vacant place in the world which could only be filled by 
her ; though what, perhaps, had as great an effect upon 
him as any thing else was that his favorite sister, whom, 
next to her, perhaps he liked best in the world, knew about 
Lily, having been taken into his confidence before he had 
realized all the difficulties, and talked to him perpetually 
about her, disapproving of his inactivity and much com- 
passionating the lonely girl. ‘‘ Oh, if I were only near 
enough, I would go and see her and keep uj^ her heart ! ” 
Janet Lumsden would cry, while her brother was fast get- 
ting into the condition of mind in which to see her, to 
make sure of her existence, was a necessity. In this con- 
dition the old house at home, with all its simple gayeties 
and tumult, became intolerable to him. He could have 
kicked the brother who demanded his sympathy in his 
engagement to a young lady with a fortune, neither the 
young lady nor the fortune being worthy to be compared 
to Lily, though the family was delighted by such a piece 
of good luck for Rob. And it set all his nerves wrong to 
see the flirtations that went on around him, though they 
were frank and simple affairs, the inevitable preferences 
which one boy and girh among so many would naturally 
show for each other. All this seemed vulgar, common, 
intolerable, and in the worst taste to Ronald. It was not 
that he was really more refined than his brothers, but that 
his own affairs had gone (temporarily) so wrong, and his 
own chosen one was so far out of the way. All the jolly, 
hearty winter life at home jarred on him and upset his 
nerves, those artificial things which did not exist in Perth- 
shire at that period, whatever they may do now. 

At last, when he could not endure it any longer, he 
announced that he was going a-fishing up toward the 
North. He was not a great fisherman, and the brothers 
laughed at Ronald setting out with his rod ; but he had 


81 


the natural gift, common to all Scotsmen of good blood, 
of knowing most people throughout his native country, 
or at least one part of his native country, and being sure 
of a welcome in a hundred houses in which a son of Lums- 
den of Pontalloch was a known and recognizable person, 
though Lumsden of Pontalloch himself was by no means a 
rich or important man. This is an advantage which the 
rotiirier never acquires until at least he has passed through 
three or four generations. Ronald Lumsden knew that he 
would never be at a loss, that if rejected in one city he 
could flee into another, and that if any impertinent ques- 
tions were put to him by Sir Robert’s own faithful ser- 
vants, he could always say that he was going to stay at 
any of the known houses within twenty miles. This hos- 
pitality perhaps exists no longer, for many of these houses 
now, probably the greater part of them, are let to strangers 
and foreigners, to whom even the native names are strange 
and the condition of the country means nothing. But it 
was so still in those days. 

He set out thus, more or less at his ease, and lingered a 
little on his way. Then he bethought himself, or so he 
said, of the Rugas, in which he had fished once as a boy, 
and which justified him in getting off the coach at the 
little inn, not much better than a village public-house, 
where a bare room and a hard bed were to be had, and a 
right to fish could be negotiated for. He had a day’s 
fishing to give himself a countenance, enquiring into 
the history generally of the country, and which 
houses were occupied, and which lairds ‘‘ up for the 
shooting.” 

‘‘ Sir Robert here ? Na, Sir Robert’s not here. Bless us 
a’, what would bring him here, an auld man like that, that 
just adores his creature comforts, and never touches a gun, 
good season or bad. No, he’s no here, nor he hasna been 
here this dozen years. But I’ll tell you wdia’s here, and 
that’s a greater ferlie : his bonnie wee niece, Maister 
James’s daughter. Miss Lily, as they call her. And it’s 
no for the shooting, there’s nae need to say, nor for the 

a 


82 


fishiDg either, poor bit thing. But what it is for is more 
than I can tell ye. It’s just a black, burning shame ” 

<< Why is it a shame ? Is the house haunted, or what’s 
the matter ? ” Ronald said, averting his face. 

‘‘ Haunted ! that’s a pack of havers. I’m not minding 
about haunted. But I tell ye what, sir, that bit lassie 
(and a bonnie bit lassie she is) is all her lane there, like a 
lily flower in the wilderness ; for Lily she’s called, and 
Lily she is — a bit willowy slender creature, bowing her 
head like a flower on the stalk.” The landlord, who was 
short and red and stout, leaned his own head to one side 
to simulate the young lady’s attitude. ‘‘ She’s there and 
never sees a single soul, and it’s mair than her life’s worth 
if ye take my opinion. If there was any body to keep her 
company, or even a lot of sportsmen coming and going, it 
would be something ; but there she is, all her lane.” 

“ Miss Ramsay ! I have met her in Edinburgh,” 
Ronald said. 

Then, if I were you, I would just take my foot in my 
hand and gang ower the moor and pay her a visit. She 
will have a grand tocher and she is a bonnie lass, and 
nowadays ye canna pick up an heiress at every roadside. 
It would be just a charity to give the poor thing a little 
diversion and make a fool o’ yon old sneck-drawer to his 
very beard. Lord ! but I wouldna waste a meenit if I 
were a young man.” 

Ronald laughed, but put on a virtuous mien. He said 
he had come for the fishing, not to pay visits, and to the 
fishing he would go. But when he had spent the morning 
on the river, it occurred to him that he might take ‘‘ a look 
at the moor”; and this was how it was that he stole 
under the shadow of the bank when the last rays of the 
sunset were fading, and suddenly came out upon the 
heather under Dalrugas Tower. 


83 


CHAPTER X 

Lily could not believe her eyes. That it was Ronald 
who approached the house, leaping over the big bushes 
of ling, seeking none of the little paths that ran here and 
there across the moor, did not occur to her. She was 
afraid that it was some stranger or traveller, probably an 
Englishman, who, seeing a woman’s head at a window, 
thought it an appropriate occasion for impertinently at- 
tempting to attract her attention. It was considered in 
those days that Englishmen and wanderers unknown in 
the district were disposed to be jocularly uncivil when they 
had a chance, and indeed the excellent Beenie, who had 
but few personal attractions, had rarely gone out alone in 
Edinburgh, as Lily had often been told, without being 
followed by some adventurous person eager to make her 
acquaintance. Lily’s first thought was that here must be 
one of Beenie’s many anonymous admirers, and after hav- 
ing watched breathlessly up to a certain point she with- 
drew with a sense of offence, somewhat haughtil}^, surprised 
that she, even at this height and distance, could be taken 
for Beenie, or that any such methods should be adopted to 
approach herself. But her heart had begun to beat, she 
knew not why, and after a few minutes’ interval she 
returned cautiously to the window. She did not see any 
one at first, and with a sigh of relief but disappointment 
said to herself that it w’as nobody, not even a lover of 
Beenie, who might have furnished her with a laugh, but 
only some passer-by pursuing his indifferent way. Then 
she ventured to put out her head to see where the passing 
figure had gone ; and lo, at the foot of the tower, immedi- 
ately below the window, stood he whom she believed to be 
so far away. There was a mutual cry of “ Ronald ” and 
“ Lily,” and then he cried, “ Hush, hush ! ” in a thrilling 


84 


whisper, and begged her to come out. Only for a mo- 
ment, only for a word,” he cried through the pale air of the 
twilight. ‘‘Has any thing happened?” cried Lily, be- 
wildered. She had no habit of the clandestine. She 
forgot that there was any sentence against their meeting, 
and felt only that when he did not come to her, but called 
to her to go to him, there must be something wrong. 

But presently the sense of the position came back to 
her. Dougal and Katrin had given no sign of conscious- 
ness that any restraint was to be exercised, they had not 
opposed any desire of hers, or attempted to prevent her from 
going out as she pleased; therefore the thought that they 
were now themselves at supper and fully occupied, though 
it came into her mind, did not affect her, nor did she feel 
it necessary to whisper back in return. But he beckoned 
so eagerly that Lily yielded to his urgency. She ran 
down stairs, catching up a plaid as she went, and in a 
moment was on the moor and by Ronald’s side. “At 
last,” he said, “ at last ! ” when the first emotion of the 
meeting was over. 

“Oh, it is me that should say ‘ at last,’ ” said the girl ; 
“ it is not you that have been alone for weeks and weeks, 
banished from every thing you know : not a kent face, 
not a kind word, and not a letter by the post.” 

“ I gave a promise I would not write. Indeed, I wanted 
to give them no handle against us, but to come the first 
moment I could without exciting suspicion.” 

“You are very feared of exciting suspicion,” she said, 
shaking her head. 

. “ Have I not cause ? Your uncle upbraided me that I 
was taking advantage of your inexperience, persuading 
you to do things you would repent after. Can I do this, 
Lily ? Can I lay myself open to such a reproach ? In- 
deed, I do know the facts of things better than you.” 

“ I don’t know what you call the facts of things,” she 
said. “ Do you know the facts of this — the moor and 
nothing but the moor, and the two-three servants, and the 
beasts ? Could you contrive to get your diversion out of 


85 


tlie ways of a pony, and the cackle of the cocks and hens ? 
Not blit they are very diverting sometimes,” said Lily, 
her heart rising. She was impatient with him. She was 
even angry with him. He it was who was to blame for 
her banishment, and he had been long, long in doing any 
thing to enliven it ; but still he was here, and the world 
was changed. Her heart rose instinctively ; even while 
she complained the things she complained of grew attrac- 
tive in her eyes. The pony’s humors brought smiles to 
her face, the moor grew fair, the diversion which she had 
almost resented when it was all she had now appeared to 
her in a happy glow of amusement ; though she was com- 
plaining in this same breath of the colorlessness of her life, 
it now seemed to her colorless no more. 

He drew her arm more closely through his. And do 
you think I had more diversion?” he asked, “feeling 
every street a desert and my rooms more vacant than the 
moor ? But that’s over, my Lily, Heaven be praised. I’m 
thought to be fishing, and fish I will, hereaway and there- 
away, to give myself a countenance, but always within 
reach. And the moor will be paradise when you and I 
meet here every day.” 

“ Oh, Ronald, if we can keep it up,” Lily murmured in 
spite of herself. 

“ Why shouldn’t we keep it up, as long, at least, as the 
Vacation lasts ? After that, it is true. I’ll have to go 
back to work ; but it is a long time before that, and I will 
go back with a light heart to do my best, to make it pos- 
sible to carry you off one day and laugh at Sir Robert, for 
that is what it must come to, Lily. You may have objec- 
tions, but you must learn to get over them. If he stands 
out and will not give in to us, we must just take it in our 
own hands. It must come to that. I would not hurry or 
press a thing so displeasing if other means will do. And 
in the meantime we’ll be very patient and try to get over 
your uncle by fair means. But if he is obstinate, dear, 
that’s what it will have to come to. No need to hurry 
you ; we’re young enough. But you must prepare your 


86 


mind for it, Lily, for that is what will have to come if he 
does not give way.” 

Lily clung to her lover’s arm in a bewilderment of 
pleasure which was yet confusion of thought, as if the 
world had suddenly turned upside down. This was her 
own sentiment, which Ronald had never shared : how in a 
moment had it become his, changing every thing, making 
the present delightful and the future all hope and light ? 
Sir Robert’s fortune had, then, begun to appear to him 
what it had been to her, so secondary a matter ! and Sir 
Robert himself only a relative worthy of consideration 
and deference, but not a tyrant obstructing all the devel- 
opments of life. She could not say : This is how I have 
felt all through,” for, indeed, it had never been possible to 
her to say to him : ‘‘ Take me; let us live poorly, but 
together,” as she had always felt. Was it ‘he who had 
felt this all through and not she at all ? Lily was bewil- 
dered, her standing-ground seemed to have changed, the 
whole position was transformed. Surely it must have been 
she who held back, who wanted to delay and temporize, 
not the lover, to whom the bolder way was more natural. 
She did not seem to feel the ground beneath her, all had 
so twisted and changed. ‘‘ That is what it must come to ; 
you must prepare your mind for it, Lily.” Had that solid 
ground been cut from under her ? was she walking upon 
air ? Her head felt a little giddy and sick in the change 
of the world ; yet what a change ! all blessedness and hap- 
piness and consolation, with no trouble in it at all. 

‘‘ I have thought so sometimes myself,” she said in the 
great bewilderment of her mind. 

“ But in the meantime we must be patient a little,” he 
said. “ Of course I am going to take my vacation here 
where we can be together. What kind of people are those 
servants ? Do they send him word about every thing and 
spy upon all your movements ? [Never mind. I’ll find a 
way to baffle them ; I am here for the fishing, you know, 
and after a little while I’ll find a lodging nearer, so that 
we may be the most of the time together while pretending 


87 


to fish. If we keep up in this direction, we will be out of 
the reach of the windows, and you can set Beenie to keep 
watch and ward. For I suppose you still tell Beenie every 
thing, and she is as faithful to you as Sir Robert’s ser- 
vants are to him ? ” 

“ I have no doubt they are faithful,” said Lily, a little 
chilled by this speech, “but they are not spies at all. 
They never meddle with me. I am sure they never write 
to him about what I am doing ; besides. Sir Robert is a 
gentleman ; he would never spy upon a girl like me.” 

“ We must not be too sure of that. He sent you here to 
be spied upon, at least to be kept out of every-body’s 
sight. I would not trust him, nor yet his servants. And 
I am nearer to you than Sir Robert, Lily. I am your 
husband that is going to be. It might be wrong for you 
to meet any other man, which you would never think of 
doing, but there’s nothing wrong in meeting me.” 

“ I never thought so,” said Lily, subdued. “ I am very, 
very glad to have you here. It will make every thing 
different. Only there is no need to be alarmed about 
Dougal and Katrin. I think they are fonder of me than 
of Uncle Robert. They are not hard upon me, they are 
sorry for me. But never mind about that. Will you 
really, really give up your vacation and your shooting, and 
all your pleasure at home, to come here and bide with 
me ? ” 

“ That and a great deal more,” said Ronald fervently. 
He felt at that moment that he could give every thing up 
for Lily. He was very much pleased, elevated, gratified 
by what he himself had said. He had taken the burden 
of the matter on his own shoulders, as it was fit that a 
man should do. He had felt when they last parted that 
in some way, he could not exactly say what, he had not 
come up to what was expected of him. He had not 
reached the height of Lily’s ideal. But now every thing 
was different. He had spoken out, he had assumed a vir- 
tue of which he had not been quite sure whether he had 
it or not ; but now he was sure. He would not forsake 


88 


her, he would never ask her to wait unduly or to suffer for 
him now. To be sure, they would have to wait — they were 
young enough, there was no harm in that — but not longer 
than w^as fit, not to make her suffer. He drew her arm 
within his, leading her along through the intricacies of 
the firm turf that formed a green network of softness amid 
the heather. It was not for her to stumble among the big 
bushes of ling or spring over the tufts. His business was 
to guard her from all that, to lead her by the grassy 
paths, where her soft footsteps should find no obstacle. 
There is a moment in a young man’s life when he thinks 
of this mission of his with a certain euthusiasm. What- 
ever else he might do, this was certainly his, to keep a 
woman’s foot from stumbling, to smooth the way for her, 
to find out the easiest road. The more he did it the more 
he felt sure that it was his to do, and should be, through 
all the following years. 

Lily was a long time out of doors that night. Robina 
came upstairs from the lengthened supper, which was one 
of the pleasantest moments of the day dowm stairs, when 
all the work was done, and all were free to talk and linger 
without any thought of the beasts or the poultry. The 
cows and the ponies were all suppered and put to bed. 
All the chickens, mothers and children, had their heads 
under their wings. The watchfullest of cocks was buried 
in sleep, the dogs were quiet on the hearthstone. Then 
was the time for those ‘‘ cracks ” which the little party 
loved. Beenie told her thrice-told tale of the wonders of 
Sir Robert’s kitchen, and the goings on of Edinburgh 
servants, while Katrin gave forth the chronicles of the 
countryside, and Dougal, not to be outdone, poured forth 
rival recollections of things which he had seen when the 
laird’s man, following his master afar, and of the tragedy 
of Mr. James, Lily’s father, who had died far from home. 
They would sometimes talk all together without observing 
it, carrying on each in his various strain. And as there 
was nobody to interrupt, supper-time was long, and full of 
varied interest. Sandy, the boy, sat at the foot of the 


89 


table with round and wondering eyes. But though he laid 
up many an image for future admiration, his interest 
flagged after a while, and an oft-repeated access of sleep 
made him the safest of listeners. “ G’y way to your bed, 
laddie^” Katrin would say, not without kindness. Lord 
bless us ! ” cried Dougal, giving his kick of dismissal under 
the table. L)’ye no hear what the mistress tells ye ? ” 
But this was the only thing that disturbed the little party. 
And Beenie usually came upstairs to find Lily with her 
pale face, she who had no cronies, nor any one with whom 
to forget herself in talk, “ wearying ” for her sole at- 
tendant. 

But on this night Beenie found no one there when she 
came upstairs, running, and a little guilty to think of the 
solitude of her little mistress. For a moment Beenie had a 
great throb of terror in her breast : the window was open, 
a faint and misty moon was shining forlorn over the moor, 
there were no candles lighted, nor sign of any living thing. 
Beenie coming in with her light was like a searcher for 
some dreadful thing, entering a place of mystery to find 
she knew not what. She held up her candle and cast a wild 
glance round the room, as if Lily might have been lying 
in a heap in some corner ; then, with a suppressed scream, 
rushed into the adjacent bedroom, where the door stood 
open and all was emptiness. Not there, not there ! The 
distracted woman fiew to the open window with a wild 
apprehension that Lil}^ in her despair, might have 
thrown herself over. ‘‘ Oh, Miss Lily, Miss Lily ! ” she 
cried, setting down her light and wringing her hands. 
Every horrible thing that could have happened rushed 
through Beenie’s mind. And what will they saj^ to me, 
that let her bide her lane and break her heart? ” she moaned 
within herself. And so strong was the certainty in her 
mind that something dreadful had happened that when 
a sound struck her ear, and she turned sharp round to see 
the little mistress, whom she had in imagination seen laid 
out white and still upon her last bed, standing all radiant 
in life and happiness behind her, the scream which burst 


90 


forth from Beenie’s lips was wilder than ever. Was it 
Lily who stood there, smiling and shining, her eyes full of 
the dew of light, and every line of her countenance beam- 
ing ? or was it rather Lily’s glorified ghost, the spirit that 
had overcome all troubles of the flesh ? It was the mis- 
chievous look in Lily’s eyes that convinced her faithful 
servant that this last hypothesis could not be the explana- 
tion. For mischief surely will not shine in glorified eyes, 
or the blessed amuse themselves with the consternation of 
mortals. And Beenie’s soul, so suddenly relieved of its 
terrors, burst out in an “ Oh, Miss Lily ! ” the perennial 
remonstrance with which the elder woman had all her life 
protested against, yet condoned and permitted, the way- 
ward humors of the girl. 

‘‘Well, Beenie ! and how long do you think you will 
take to your supper another time ? ” Lily said. 

“ Oh, Miss Lily, and where have you been ? I’ve had a 
fright that will make me need no more suppers as long as 
I live. Supper, did ye say ? Me that thought that you 
were out of the window, lying cauld and stark at the foot 
of the tower. Oh, my bonnie dear, my heart’s beating 
like a muckle drum. Where have ye been ? ” 

“ I have been on the moor,” said Lily dreamily. 
“ I’ve had a fine walk, half the way to the town, while 
you have been taken up with your bannocks and your 
cheese and your cracks. I had a great mind to come 
round to the window and put something white over my 
head and give you a good fright, sitting there telling 
stories and thinking nothing of me.” 

“ Eh, I wasna telling stories — no me ! ” 

Why Beenie made this asseveration I cannot tell, for 
she did nothing but tell stories all the time that Dougal, 
Katrin, and she were together ; but it was natural to deny 
instinctively whatever accusation of neglect was brought 
against her. “ And eh,” she cried, with natural art, 
turning the tables, “ what a time of night to be out on 
that weary moor, a young lady like you. Your feet will 
be wet with the dew, and no a thing upon your shoulders 


91 


to keep you from the cold. Eh, Miss Lily, Miss Lily ! ” 
cried Robina, with all the fictitious indignation of a 
counter accusation, them that has to look after you 
and keep you out of mischief has hard ado.” 

‘‘ Perhaps you will get me a little supper now that you 
have had plenty for yourself,” said Lily, keeping up the 
advantage on her side. But she was another Lily from 
that pale flower which had looked so sadly over the moor 
before Robina went down stairs to her prolonged meal, a 
radiant creature with joy in every movement. What 
could it be that had happened to Lily while her faithful 
woman was down stairs ? 


CHAPTER XI 

Lily kept the secret to herself as long as it was in 
mortal power to do so. She sent Beenie off to bed, en- 
tirely mystified and unable to explain to herself the trans- 
formation which had taken place, while she herself lay 
down under the canopies of the “ best bed ” and watched 
the misty moonlight on the moor, and pictured to herself 
that Ronald would be only now arriving, after his long 
walk, at his homely lodging. But what did it matter to 
him to be late, to walk so far, to traverse, mile after mile 
in the dark, that lonesome road ? He was a man, and it 
was right and fit for him. If he had been walking half 
the night, it would have been just .what the rural lads do, 
proud of their sweethearts, for whom they sacrifice half 
their rest. 


** I’ll take my plaid and out I’ll steal, 

And o’er the hills to Nannie O.’" 

That was the sentiment for the man, and Lily felt her 
heart swell with the pride of it and the satisfaction. She 
had thought — had she really thought it ? — that he was too 
careful, too prudent, more concerned about her fortune 


92 


than her happiness, but how false that had all been ! or 
how different he was now ! “ To carry you off some day 

and laugh at Sir Robert,' for that is what it must come to, 
Lily.” Ah, she had alwa^-^s known that this was what it 
must come to ; but he had not seen it, or at least she had 
thought he did not see it in the Edinburgh days. He had 
learned it, however, since then, or else, which was most 
likely, it had always been in him, only mistaken by her or 
undeveloped ; for it takes some time, she said to herself, 
before a man like Ronald, full of faith in his fellow-creat- 
ures, could believe in a tyranny like Sir Robert’s, or 
think that it was any thing but momentary. To think 
that the heartless old man should send a girl here, and then 
go away and probably forget all about her, leaving her to 
pine away in the wilderness — that was a thing that never 
would have entered into Ronald’s young and wholesome 
mind. But now he saw it all, and that passiveness Avhich 
had chilled and disappointed Lily was gone. That was 
what it must come to. Ah, yes, it was this it must come 
to : independence, no waiting on an old man’s caprices, no 
dreadful calculations about a fortune, which was not theirs, 
which Lily did not grudge Sir Robert, which she was 
willing, contemptuously, that he should do what he pleased 
with, which she would never buy at the cost of the happi- 
ness of her young life. And now Ronald thought so too. 
The little flat high up under the tiles of a tall old Edin- 
burgh house began to appear again, looming in the air 
over the wild moor. What a home it would be, what a 
nest of love and happiness ! Ronald never should repent, 
oh, never, never should he repent that he had chosen 
Lily’s love rather than Sir Robert’s fortune. How happy 
they would be, looking out over all the lights and shadows 
with the great town at their feet and all their friends 
around ! Lily fell asleep in this beatitude of thought, 
and in the same awakened, wondering at herself for one 
moment why she should feel so happy, and then remem- 
bering with a rush of delightful retrospection. Was it 
possible that all the world had thus changed in a moment. 


93 


that the clouds had all fled away, that these moors were 
no longer the wilderness, but a little outlying land of 
paradise, where happiness was, and every thing that was 
good was yet to be ? 

Beenie found her young mistress radiant in the morning 
as she had left her radiant when she went to bed. The 
young girl’s countenance could not contain her smiles ; 
they seemed to ripple over, to mingle with the light, to 
make sunshine where there was none. What could have 
happened to her in that social hour when Bobina was at 
supper with her friends, usually one of the dullest of the 
twenty-four to lonely Lily ? Whom could she have seen, 
what could she have heard, to light those lamps of happi- 
ness in her eyes ? But Robina could not divine what it 
was, and Lily laughed and flouted, and reproached her 
with smiles always running over. ‘‘You w^ere so busy 
with your supper you never looked what might be hap- 
pening to me. You and Katrin and Dougal were so full 
of your cracks you had no eyes for a poor lassie. I might 
have been lost upon the moor and you would never have 
found it out. But I was not lost, you see, only wonderfully 
diverted, and spent a happy evening, and you never knew. ” 

“ Miss Lily,” said Beenie, with tears, “ never more, if 
I should starve, will I go down to my supper again ! ” 

“ You will just go down to your supper to-night and 
every night, and have your cracks with Dougal and Katrin, 
and be as happy as you can, for I am happy too. I am 
lonely no more. I am just the Lily I used to be before 
trouble came — oh, better ! for it’s flner to be happy again 
after trouble than when you are just innocent and never 
have learned what it is.” 

“ The Lord bless us all! ” cried Beenie solemnly, “ the 
bairn speaks as if she had gone, like Eve, into the thickest 
of the gairden and eaten of the tree ” 

“So 1 have,” said Lily. “ I once was just happy like 
the bairn you call me, and then I was miserable. And now 
I know the difference, for I’m happy again, and so 1 will 
always be.” 


94 


“ Oh, Miss Lily,” said Beenie, “ to say you will always 
be is just flyiug in the face of Providence, for there is no- 
body in this world that is always happy. We would be 
mail* than mortal if we could be sure of that.” 

‘‘ But I am sure of it,” said Lily, ‘‘ for what made me 
miserable was just misjudging a person. I thought I un- 
derstood, and I didn’t understand. And now 1 do ; and if 
I were to live to a hundred, I would never make that mis- 
take again. And it lies at the bottom of every thing. I 
may be ill, I may be poor, 1 may have other troubles, but 
I can never, never,” said Lily, placing piously her hands 
together, ‘‘ have that unhappiness which is the one that 
gives bitterness to all the rest — again.” 

‘‘ My bonnie lady ! I wish I knew what you were mean- 
ing,” Beenie said. 

Lily kept her hands clasped and her head raised a little, 
as if she were saying a prayer. And then she turned with 
a graver countenance to her wondering maid. ‘‘ Do you 
think,” she said, “ that Dougal or Katrin — but I don’t 
think Katrin — writes to Uncle Robert and tells him every 
thing I do ? ” 

‘‘ Dougal or Katrin write to Sir Robert ? But what 
would they do that for ? ” said Beenie, with wide-open 
eyes. 

‘‘ Well, I don’t know — yes, I do know. I know what 
has been said, but I don’t believe it. They say that 
Sir Robert’s servants write every thing to him and tell 
all I do.” 

“ You do nothing. Miss Lily. What should they write ? 
What do they ken ? They ken nothing. Miss Lily, Sir 
Robert, he’s a gentleman. Do you think he would set a 
watch on a bit young creature like you ? He may be a 
hard man, and no considerate, but he is not a man like 
that.” 

That’s what I said ! ” cried Lily ; “ but tell me one 
thing more. Do they know — did he tell them why — what 
for he sent me here ? ” 

A blush and a cloud came over her sensitive face, and 


95 


then a smile broke forth like the sunshine, and chased the 
momentary trouble away. 

“ Not a word, Miss Lily, not a word. Was he likely 
to expose himsel’ and you, that are his nearest kin ? No 
such thing. Many, many a wonder they have taken, and 
many a time they have tried to get it out of me ; but I say 
it was just because of having no fit home for a young lady, 
and him aye going away to take his waters, and to play 
himself at divers places that were not fit for the like of 
you. They dinna just believe me, but they just give each 
other a bit look and never say a word. And it’s my 
opinion. Miss Lily, that they’re just far fonder of you, 
Mr. James’s daughter, than they are of Sir Robert, for 
Dougal was Mr. James’s ain man, and to betray you to 
your uncle, even if there was any thing to tell — which 
there is not, and I’m hoping never will be — is what they 
would not do. You said yourself you did not believe that 
Katrin would ever tell upon you ; and I’m just as sure of 
Dougal, that is very fond of you, though he mayna show 
it. And then there’s the grand security of a’. Miss Lily, 
that there is nothing to tell.” 

“ To be sure, that is, as you say, the grand security of 
all!” Then Lily’s face burst into smiles, and she flung 
discretion to the winds. Beenie,” she said, ‘‘ you would 
never guess. I was very lonely at the window last night, 
wondering and wondering if I would just bide there all 
my life, and never see any body coming over the moor, 
when, in a moment, I saw somebody ! He was standing 
among the heather at the foot of the tower.” 

“ Miss Lily ! ” 

‘‘ Just so,” said the girl, nodding her head in the delight 
of her heart, ‘‘ it was just — him. When every thing was 
at the darkest, and my heart was broken. Oh, Beenie ! 
and it’s quite different from what I thought. I thought 
he was more for saving Uncle Robert’s fortune than for 
making me happy. I was just a fool for my pains. ‘If he 
stands out, we must just take it in our own hands ; it must 
come to that; you must just prepare your mind for it. 


Lily.’ That was what he said, and me misjudging and 
making myself miserable all the time. That is why I say 
1 will never be miserable again, for 1 will misjudge Ronald 
no more.” 

“Eh, Miss Lily !” Beenie said again. Her mind was 
in a confusion even greater than that of her young mis- 
tress ; and she did not know what to say. If Lily had 
misjudged him, so had she, and worse, and worse, she said 
to herself ! Beenie had not been made miserable, how- 
ever, by the mistake as Lily had been, and she was not 
uplifted by the discovery, if it was a discovery; a cold 
doubt still hovered about her heart. 

“ I will tell you the truth. I will not hide any thing 
from you,” said Lily. “ He is at Kinloch-Rugas ; he is 
staying in the very town itself. He has come here for the 
fishing. He’ll maybe not catch many fish, but we’ll both 
be happy, which is of more importance. Be as long as 
you like at your supper, Beenie, for then I will slip out 
and take my walk upon the moor, and Dougal and Katrin 
need never know any thing except that I am, as they think 
already, a silly lassie keeping daft-like hours. If they 
write that to Uncle Robert, what will it matter ? To go 
out on the moor at the sunset is not silly; it is the right 
thing to do. And the weather is just like heaven, you 
know it is, one day rising after another, and never a 
cloud.” 

“ ’Deed, there are plenty of clouds,” said Beenie, “ and 
soon we’ll have rain, and you cannot wander upon the moor 
then, not if he were the finest man in all the world.” 

“ We’ll wait till that time comes, and then we’ll think 
what’s best to do ; but at present it is just the loveliest 
weather that ever was seen. Look at that sky,” said 
Lily, pointing to the vault of heavenly blue, which, indeed, 
was not cloudless, but better, flushed with beatific specks 
of white like the wings of angels. And then the girl 
sprang out of bed and threw herself into Robina’s arms. 
“Oh, I’ve been faithless, faithless!” she cried; “I’ve 
thought nothing but harm and ill. And I was mistaken, 


97 


mistaken all the time ! I could hide my face in the dust 
for shame, and then I could lift it up to the skies for joy. 
For there’s nothing matters in this world so long as them 
you care for are good and true and care for you. Noth- 
ing, nothing, whether it’s wealth or poverty, whether it’s 
parting or meeting. I thought he was thinking more of 
the siller than of true love. The more shame to me in my 
ignorance, the silly, silly thing I was. And all the time 
it was just the contrary, and true love was what he was 
thinking of, though it was only for an unworthy creature 
like me.” 

‘‘ I wouldna be so humble as that, my bonnie dear. Ye 
are nane unworthy ; you’re one that any person might be 
proud of to have for their ain. I’m saying nothing 
against Mr. Ronald, wha is a fine young man and just suits 
ye very well if every thing was according. Weel, weel, 
you need not take off my head. Ye can say what you 
like, but he would just be very suitable if he had a little 
more siller or a little more heart. Oh, I am not undoubting 
his heart in that kind of a way. He’s fond enough of you, 
I make no doubt of that. It’s courage is what he wants, 
and the heart to take things into his own hands.” 

“ Beenie,” said the young mistress with dignity, 
“ when the like of you takes a stupid fit, there is nothing 
like your stupidity. Oh ! it’s worse than that — it is a 
determination not to understand that takes the patience 
out of one. But I will not argue ; I might have held my 
tongue and kept it all to myself, but I would not, for I’ve 
got a bad habit of telling you every thing. Ah ! it’s a 
very bad habit, when you set yourself like a stone wall, 
and refuse to understand. Go away now, you dull 
woman, and leave me alone ; and if you like to betray me 
and him to those folk in the kitchen, you will just have to 
do it, for I cannot stop you ; but it will be the death 
of me.” 

“Z betray you ! ” said Beenie with such a tone of in- 
jured feeling as all Lily’s caresses, suddenly bestowed in a 
flood, could not calm j but peace was made after a while^ 
7 


and Robin a went forth to the world as represented 
by Katrin and Dougal with an increase of dignity and 
self-importance which these simple people could not 
understand. 

‘‘ Bless me, you will have been hearing some grand 
news or other,” said Katrin. 

Me ! How could I hear any news, good or bad, and 
me the same as in prison ? ” said Beenie, upon which 
both her companions burst into derisive laughter. 

An easy prison,” said Katrin, ‘‘ where you can come 
and gang at your pleasure and nobody to say, ‘ Where are 
ye gaun ? ’ ” 

‘‘You’re on your parole, Beenie,” said Dougal, “like 
one of the officers in the time of the war.” 

“That is just it,” said Robina ; “you never said a 
truer word. I’m just on my parole. I can go where I 
please, but no go away. And I can do what I please, but 
no what I want to do. That’s harder than stonewalls and 
iron bars.” 

“ But what can ye be wanting to do sae out of the 
ordinary ? ” said Katrin. “ Me, I thought we were such 
good friends just living very peaceable, and you content, 
Beenie, more or less, as weel as a middle-aged Avoman with 
nothing happening to her is like to be.” 

“ I wasna consulting you about my age or wffiat I ex- 
pected,” Beenie replied with quick indignation. It was 
a taunt that made the tears steal to her eyes. If Katrin 
thought it was such a great thing to be married, and that 
she, Robina, had not had her chance like another ! But 
she drew herself up and added grandly : “ It is my young 
lady that is in prison, poor thing, shut out from all her 
own kind. And how do I ken that you two are not just 
two jailers over her, keeping the poor thing fast that she 
should never make a step, nor see a face, but what Sir 
Robert would have to know ? ” 

The two guardians of Dalrugas consulted each other 
with a glance. “ Oh, is that hit ? ” said Katrin. It is 
seldom, very seldom, that a Scotch speaker makes any 


99 


havoc with the letter A, but there is an occasional excep- 
tion to this rule for the sake of emphasis. ‘‘ Is that hit ” is 
a stronger expression than “is that it.” It isolates the 
pronoun and gives it force. Dougal for his part pushed 
his cap off his head till it hung on by one hair. It had 
been Robina’s object to keep them in the dark ; but her 
attempt was not successful. It diverted rather a stream 
of light upon a point which they had not yet taken into 
consideration at all. Many had been the wonderings at 
first over Lily ’s arrival, and Sir Robert’s reason for sending 
her here, but no guidance had been afforded to the curious 
couple, and their speculations had died a natural death. 

But Robina’s unguarded speech woke again all the 
echoes. “ It will just be a lad, after a’,” Katrin said to 
her spouse, when Robiua, perceiving her mistake, retired. 

“ I wouldna say but what it was,” answered Dougal. 

“ And eh, man,” said his wife, “ you and me, that just 
stable our beasts real peaceable together, would not be the 
ones to make any outcry if it was a bonnie lad and one 
that was well meaning.” 

“ If the lad’s bonnie or not is naething to you or me,”” 
said the husband. 

“ I’m no speaking of features, you coof, and that ye ken 
weel ; but one that means weel and would take the poor 
bit motherless lassie to a hame of her ain : eh, Dougal 
man ! ” said Katrin, with the moisture in her eyes. 

“ How do we ken,” said Dougal, “ if there is a lad — 
which is no way proved, but weemen’s thoughts are aye 
upon that kind of thing — that he is no just after Sir 
Robert’s fortune, and thinking very little of the bonnie 
lass herself ? ” 

“ Eh, but men are ill-thinking creatures,” said Katrin. 
“Ye ken by yourselves, and mind all the worldly mean- 
ings ye had, when a poor lass was thinking but of love and 
kindness. And what for should the gentleman be thinking 
of Sir Robert’s fortune ? He has, maybe, as good a one 
of his ain.” 

“ No likely,” said Dougal, shaking his head. But he 


100 


added : “ I’ll no play false to Maister James’s daughter 
whatever, and you’ll no let me hear any clashes out of your 
head,” he said, with magisterial action striding away. 

‘‘When it was me that was standing up for her a’ the 
time ! ” Katrin cried with an indignation that was not 
without justice. 


CHAPTER XII 

Next night the supper was much prolonged in the 
kitchen at Dalrugas. The three convives — for Sandy 
tumbled off to sleep and was hustled off to bed at an early 
hour — told stories against each other with devotion, 
Katrin adding notes and elucidations to every anecdote 
slowly worked out by her husband, and meeting every 
wonder of Beenie’s by a more extraordinary tale. But 
while they thus occupied themselves with a strong inten- 
tion and meaning that Lily’s freedom should be complete, 
*the thrill of consciousness about all three was unmistak- 
able. How it came about that they knew this to be the 
moment when Lily desired to be unwatched and free 
neither Dougal nor Katrin could have told. Lily had been 
roaming about the moor for a great part of the day, some- 
times with Beenie, sometimes alone ; but they had taken 
no more notice than usual. Perhaps they thought of the 
country custom which brings the wooer at nightfall ; per- 
haps something magnetic was in the air. At all events 
this was the effect produced. They sat down in the early 
twilight, which had not yet quite lost its prolonged mid- 
summer sweetness, and the moon was shining, whitening 
the great breadth of the moor, before they rose. They 
had neither heard nor seen any thing of Lily on the pre- 
vious evening, though she had gone out with more haste 
and less precaution than now ; but her movements to-night 
seemed to send the thrill of a pulse beating all through the 
gaunt, high house. Each of them heard her flit down 


101 


stairs, though her step was so light. The husband and 
wife gave each other a glance when they heard the sound, 
though it was no more than the softest touch, of the big 
hall-door as she drew it behind her ; and Beenie raised her 
voice instinctively to drown the noise, as if it had been 
something loud and violent. They all thought they heard 
her step upon the grass, which was impossible, and the 
sound of another step meeting hers. They were all con- 
scious to their finger-tips of what poor little Lil}’’ was 
about, or what they thought she was about ; though, 
indeed, Lily had fiown forth like a dove, making no noise 
at all, even in her own excited ears. 

And as for any sound of their steps upon the mossy 
greenness of the grass that intersected the heather, and 
made so soft a background for the big hummocks of the 
ling, there was no such thing that any but fairy ears could 
have heard. Ronald was standing in the same place, at 
the foot of the tower, when Lily flew out noiseless, with 
the plaid over her arm. He had brought a basket of fish, 
which he placed softly within the hall-door. 

“ You see, I am not, after all, a fisher for nothing,” he 
whispered, as he put the soft plaid about her shoulders. 

“ Whisht ! don’t say any thing,” said Lily, ‘‘ till we are 
further ofl: the house.” 

“ You don’t trust them, then ? ” he said. 

Oh, I trust them ! but it’s a little dreadful to think 
one has to trust any body and to be afraid of what a ser- 
vant will say.” 

“So it is,” he agreed, “but that is one of the minor 
evils we must just put up with, Lily. We would not if 
we could help it. Still, when your uncle compels you and 
me to proceedings like this, he must bear the guilt of it, if 
there is any guilt.” 

“ ‘Guilt’ is a big word,” said Lil}^ ; and then she 
added : “ I suppose it is what a great many do and think 
no shame.” 

“ Shame ! ” he said, “ for two lovers to meet that are 
kept apart for no reason in the world ! If we were to meet 


102 


Sir Robert face to face, I hope my Lily would not blush, 
and certainly there would be no shame in me. He dared 
us to it when he sent you away, and I don’t see how he 
can expect any thing different. 1 would be a poor creature 
if, when I was free myself, I let my bonnie Lily droop 
alone.” 

‘‘ A poor Lily you would have found me if it had lasted 
much longer,” she said, ‘‘ but, oh, Ronald! never think of 
that now. Here we are together, and we believe in each 
other, which is all we want. To doubt, that is the dread- 
ful thing — to think that perhaps there are other thoughts 
not like your own in his mind, and that however you may 
meet, and however near you may be, you never know what 
he may be thinking.” Lily shuddered a little, notwith- 
standing that he had put the plaid so closely round her, 
and that her arm was within his. 

‘‘ Yes,” said Ronald, ‘‘ and don’t you think there might 
be the same dread in him ? that his Lily was doubting 
him, not trusting, perhaps turning away to other ” 

‘‘ Don’t say that, Ronald, for it is not possible. You 
could not ever have doubted me. Don’t say that, or I’ll 
never speak to you again.” 

‘‘And why not I as well as you?” said Ronald. 
“ There is just as much occasion. I believe there is no 
occasion, Lily. Don’t mistake me again, but just as much 
occasion.” 

She looked at him for a moment with her face changing 
as he repeated : “Just as much occasion.” And then, 
with a happy sigh : “ Which is none,” she said. 

“ On either side. The one the same as the other. 
Promise me you will always keep to that, and never 
change your mind.” 

She only smiled in reply; words did not seem necessary. 
They understood each other without any such foolish for- 
mula. And how was it possible she should change her 
mind ? how ever go beyond that moment, which was 
eternity, which held all time within the bliss of its con- 
tent ? The entreaty to keep to that seemed to Lily to be 


103 


without meaning. This was always ; this was forever. 
Her mind could no more change than the great blue peak 
. of Schiehallion could change, standing up against the lovely 
evening sky. She had recognized her mistake, with what 
pride and joy ! and that was over forever. It was a 
chapter never to be opened again. 

The lingering sunset died over the moor, with every 
shade of color that the imagination could conceive. The 
heather flamed now pink, now rose, now crimson, now 
purple ; little clouds of light detached themselves from the 
pageant of the sunset and floated all over the blue, like 
rose-leaves scattered and floating on a heavenly breeze ; 
the air over the hills thrilled with a vibration more delicate 
than that of the heat, but in a similar confusion, like 
water, above the blue edges of the mountains. Then the 
evening slowly dimmed, the colors going out upon the 
moor, tint by tint, though they still lingered in the sky ; 
then in the east, which had grown gray and wistful, came 
up all at once the white glory of the moon. It was such 
an evening as only belongs to the North, an enchanted 
hour, neither night nor day, bound by no vulgar condi- 
tions, lasting forever, like Lily ’s mood, no limits or boun- 
daries to it, floating in infinite vastness and stillness 
between heaven and earth. The two who, being together, 
perfected this spotless period, wandered over all the moor, 
not thinking where they were going, winding out and in 
among the bushes of the heather, wherever the spongy 
turf would bear a footstep. They forgot that they were 
afraid of being seen : but, indeed, there was nobody to see 
them, not a soul on the high-road nor on the moor. They 
forgot all chances of betrayal, all doubts about Sir Robert’s 
servants, every thing, indeed, except that they were to- 
gether and had a thousand things to say to each other, 
or nothing at all to say to each other, as happened, the 
silence being as sweet as the talk, and the pair changing 
from one to the other as caprice dictated : now all still 
breathing like one being, now garrulous as the morning 
birds. They forgot themselves so far that, after two or 


104 


three false partings, Ronald taking Lily home, then Lily 
accompanying Ronald back again to the edge of the moor, 
he walked with her at last to the very foot of the tower, 
from whence he had first called her, though there were 
audible voices just round the corner, clearly denoting that 
the other inmates were taking a breath of air after their 
supper at the ha’-door. There was almost a pleasure in 
the risk, in coming close up to those by-standers, yet 
unseen, and whispering the last good-night almost within 
reach of their ears. 

“ I do not see why I should carry on the farce of fishing 
all day long,” said Ronald, ‘‘ and see you only in the 
evening. You can get out as easily in the afternoon as 
in the evening, Lily.” 

“ Oh, yes, quite as easy. Nobody minds me where I 
go.” 

“ Then come down to the waterside. It is not too far 
for you to walk. I will be by way of fishing up the 
stream ; and I will bring my lunch in my pocket and we 
will have a little picnic together, you and me.” 

I will do that, Ronald ; but the evening is the bonnie 
time. The afternoon is just vulgar day, and this is the 
enchanted time. It is all poetry now.” 

“It is you that are the poetry, Lily. Me, I’m onl^^ 
common fiesh and blood.” 

“It is the two of us that make the poetry,” said Lily ; 
“ but the afternoon will be fine, too, and I will come. I 
will allow you to catch no fish — little bonnie things, why 
should they not be happy in the water, like us on the 
bank?” 

“ I like very well to see them in the basket, and to feel 
I have been so clever as to catch them,” said Ronald. 

“ And so do I,” cried Lily, with a laugh so frank that 
they were both startled into silence, feeling that the audi- 
ence round the corner had stopped their talk to listen. 
This, the reader will see not all protestations, not all sighs 
of sentiment, was the manner of their talk before they 
finally parted, Ronald making a long circuit so as to 


105 


emerge unseen and lower down upon the high-road, on the 
other side of the moor. Was it necessary to make any 
such make-believe ? Lily walked round the corner, with 
a blush yet a smile, holding her head high, looking her 
possible critics in the face. It was Dougal and Katrin, 
who had come out of doors to breathe the air after their 
supper, and to see the bonnie moor. Within, in the 
shadow of the stairs, was a vision of Beenie, very nervous, 
her eyes round and shining with eagerness and suspense. 
Lily coming in view, all radiant in the glory of her youth, 
full of happiness, full of life, too completely inspired and 
lighted up with the occasion to take any precautions of 
concealment, was like a revelation. She was youth and 
joy and love impersonified, coming out upon the lower 
level of common life, which was all these good people 
knew, like a star out of the sky. Katrin, arrested in the 
question on her lips, gazed at her with a woman’s ready 
perception of the new and wonderful atmosphere about 
her. Dougal, half as much impressed, but not knowing 
why, pushed his cap on one side as usual, inserting an 
interrogative finger among the masses of his grizzled hair. 

“ So you’ve been taking your walk. Miss Lily,” said 
Katrin, subdued out of the greater vigor of remark which 
she had been about to use. 

‘‘ Yes, Katrin, while you have been having your 
supper. Your voices sound very nice down stairs when 
3"ou are having your cracks, but they make me feel all the 
more lonely by myself. It’s more company on the moor,” 
Lily said, with an irrestrainable laugh. She meant, I 
suppose, to deceive — that is, she had no desire to betray 
herself to those people who might betray her — but she was 
so unused to any kind of falsehood that she brought out 
her ambiguous phrase so as to make it imply, if not express, 
the truth. 

“ I am glad you should find it company. Miss Lily. 
It’s awfu’ bonnie and fresh and full of fine smells, the gale 
under your foot, and the wholesome heather, and a’ thae 
bonnie little flowers.” 


106 


‘‘ Losh me ! I would find them puir company for my 
part,” said Dougal ; but there is, maybe ” 

‘‘ Hold your peace, you coof. Do ye think the like of 
you can faddom a young leddy that is just close kin to 
every thing that’s bonnie ? You, an auld gillie, a High- 
land tyke, a ” 

Don’t abuse Dougal, though you have paid me the 
prettiest compliment. Could I have the powny to-morrow, 
Dougal, to go down the water a bit ? and I will take a 
piece with me, Katrin, in case I should be late ; and then 
you need never fash your heads about me whether I come 
in to dinner or not.” 

‘‘ My bonnie leddy, I like every-body to come in to their 
denner,” said Katrin, with a cloud upon her face. 

‘‘So do I, in a usual way. But I have been here a long 
time. How long, Beenie ? A whole month, fancy that ! 
and they tell me there is a very bonnie glen down by the 
old bridge that people go to see.” 

“ So there is, a real bonnie bit. I’ll take ye there some 
day mysel’, and Beenie, she can come in the cairt with 
the black powny gin she likes. She’ll mind it well ; a’ 
the bairns are keen to gang in the vacance to the Fairy 
Glen.” 

“ I’ll not wait for Beenie this time, or you either, 
Dougal,” said Lily, again with a laugh. “ I will just take 
Rory for my guide and find it out for myself. I think,” 
she added, with a deeper blush and a faltering voice, 
“ that Miss Helen from the Manse ” 

She did not get far enough to tell that faltering fib. 
“ Oh, if you are to be with Miss Eelen ! Miss Eelen 
knows every corner of the Fairy Glen. I will be very easy 
in my mind,” said Katrin, “ if Miss Eelen ’s there ; and 
I’ll put up that cold chicken in a basket, and ye shall have 
a nice lunch as ever two such nice creatures could sit down 
to. But ye’ll mind not to wet your feet, nor climb up the 
broken arch of the auld brig yonder. Eh, but that’s an 
exploit for a stirring boy, and no a diversion for leddies. 
And ye’ll just give the powny a good feed, and take him 


107 


out a while in the morning, Dougal, that he mayna be too 
fresh.” 

‘‘I’m just thinking,” said Dougal, “there’s a dale to 
do the morn ; but if ye were to wait till the day after, I 
could spare the time. Miss Lily, to take you mysel’.” 

“And if it’s just preceesely the morn that Miss Eelen’s 
coming ! ” cried Katrin, with great and solid effect, while 
Lily, alarmed, began to explain and deprecate, pleading 
that she could find the way herself so easily, and would 
not disturb Dougal for the world. She hurried in after 
this little episode to avoid any further dangers, to be met 
by Beenie’s round eyes and troubled face in the dark under 
the stair. “Oh, Miss Lily!” Beenie cried, putting a 
hand of remonstrance on her arm, which Lily shook off 
and flew upstairs, very happy, it must be allowed, in her 
first attempt at deceit. Robina looked more scared and 
serious than ever when she appeared with a lighted candle 
in the drawing-room, shaking her solemn head. Her eyes 
were so round, and her look so solemn, that she looked not 
unlike a large white owl in the imperfect light, and so 
Lily told her with a tremulous laugh, to avert, if possible, 
the coming storm. But Beenie’s storm, though confused 
and full of much vague rumble of ineffectual thunder, was 
not to be averted. She repeated her undefined but power- 
ful remonstrance, “ Oh, Miss Lily ! ” as she set down the 
one small candle in the midst of the darkness, with much 
shaking of her head. 

“ Well, what is it ? Stop shaking your head, or you 
will shake it off, and you and me will break our backs 
looking for it on the floor, and speak out your mind and 
be done with it! ” cried Lily, stamping her foot upon the 
carpet. Robina made a solemn pause, before she repeated, 
still more emphatically, her “Oh, Miss Lily ! ” again. 

“ To bring in Miss Eelen’s name, puir thing, puir thing, 
that has nothing to do with such vanities, just to give ye 
a countenance and be a screen to you, and you going to 
meet your lad, and no leddy near ye at a’.” 

“ Don’t speak so loud! ” cried Lily with an affectation 


108 


of alarm ; and then she added : “I never said Helen was 
coming ; I only ” 

‘‘ Put it so that Katrin thought that was what you 
meant. Oh, I ken fine ! It’s no a falsehood, you say, but 
it’s a falsehood you put into folk’s heads. And, ’deed, 
Katrin was a great fool to take heed for a moment of what 
you said, when it was just written plain in your eyes and 
every line of your countenance, and the very gown on your 
back, that you had come from a meeting with your lad ! ” 
‘‘ I wish you would not use such common words, 
Beenie ! as if I were the house-maid meeting my lad ! ” 
‘‘I fail to see where the difference lies,” said Beenie 
with dignity ; the thing’s just the same. You’re maybe 
no running the risks a poor lass runs, that has naebody to 
take care of her. But this is no more than the second time 
he’s come, and lo ! there’s a wall of lees rising round your 
feet already, trippin’ ye up at every step. What will ye 
say to Katrin, Miss Lil}^ the morn’s night when ye come 
hame ? Will ye keep it up and pretend till her that Miss 
Helen’s met ye at the auld brig ? or will ye invent some 
waur story to account for her no coming ? or what, I ask 
ye, will ye do ? ” 

“ Katrin,” said Lily, with burning cheeks, but a 
haughtj^ elevation of the head, “ has no right to cross- 
question me.” 

‘‘Nor me either. Miss Lily, ye will be thinking ? ” 

“ It does not matter what I’m thinking. She is one thing 

and you are another. I have told you Oh, Beenie, 

Beenie,” cried the girl suddenly, “ why do you begin to 
make objections so soon ? What am I doing more than 
other girls do ? Who is it I am deceiving ? Nobody ! 
Uncle Robert wanted to make me promise I would give 
him up, but I would not promise. I never said I would 
not see him and speak to him and make him welcome if he 
came to me ; there Vas never a word of that between us. 
And as for Katrin ! ” cried Lily with scorn. “ Why, Grace 
Scott met Robbie Burns out at Duddingston, and told her 
mother she had only been walking with her cousin, and 


109 


you just laughed when you told me. And her mother ! 
very different, very different from Katrin. You said what 
an ill lassie ! but you laughed and you said Mrs. Scott was 
wrong to force them to it. That was all the remark you 
made, Robina, my dear woman,” said Lily, recovering her 
spirit ; “ so I am not going to put up with any criticism 
from you.” 

“ Oh, Miss Lily ! ” Robina said. But what could she 
add to this mild remonstrance, having thus been convicted 
of a sympathy with the vagaries of lovers which she did not, 
indeed, deny ? And it cannot be said that poor Lily’s sug- 
gested falsehood did much harm. Katrin, for her part, had 
very little faith in Miss Eelen as the companion of the 
young lady’s ramble. She too shook her head as she 
packed her basket. “ I see now,” she said, the meaning 
o’t, which is aye a satisfaction. It’s some fine lad that 
hasna siller enough to please Sir Robert. And he’s come 
after her, and they’re counting on a wheen walks and 
cracks together, poor young things. Maybe if she had 
had a mother it would have been different, or if poor Mr. 
James had lived, poor man, to take care of his ain bit 
bairn. Sir Robert’s a dour auld carl; he’s not one I would 
put such a charge upon. What does he ken about a young 
leddy’s heart, poor thing ? But they shall have a good 
lunch whatever,” the good woman said. 

And when the sun was high over the moor and every 
thing shining, not too hot nor too bright, the tempered and 
still-breathing noon of the North, Lily set out upon her 
pony with the basket by her saddle, and all the world smil- 
ing and inviting before her. Never had such a daring and 
delightful holiday dawned upon her before. Almost a 
whole day to spend together, Ronald all that she dreamed, 
and not an inquisitive or unkindly eye to look upon them, 
not even Beenie to disturb their absorption in each other. 
She waved her whip in salutation to the others behind as 
they stood watching her set out. “ A bonnie day to ye. 
Miss Lily,” cried Katrin. And you’ll no be late ? ” said 
anxious Beenie. “ ’Od,” cried Dougal, with his cap on 


110 


bis ear, “ I wish I bad just put off tbae potataies and gone 

'witb ber mysel’ ” “ Ye fuil! ” said bis wife, and said 

no further word. And Lily rode away in heavenly content 
and expectation over the moor. 


CHAPTER XIII 

The day was one of those Highland days which are a 
dream of freshness and beauty and delight. I do not claim 
that they are very frequent, but sometimes they will occur 
in a cluster, two or three together, like a special benedic- 
tion out of heaven. The sun has a purity, a clearness, an 
ecstasy of light which it has nowhere else. It looks, as it 
were, with a heavenly compunction upon earth and sky, 
as if to make up for the many days when it is absent, 
expanding over mountain and moor Avith a smiling which 
seems personal and full of intention. The air is life 
itself, uncontaminated with any evil emanation, full of 
the warmth of the sun, and the odor of the fir-trees and 
heather, and the murmur of all the living things about. 
The damp and dew which linger in the shady places dis- 
appear as if by magic. No unkindly creature, no ven- 
omous thing, is abroad ; no noise, no jar of living, though 
every thing lives and grows and makes progress with such 
silent and smiling vigor. The two lovers in the midst of 
this incense-breathing nature, so still, yet so strong, so 
peaceful, yet so vigorous, felt that the scene was made 
for them, that no surroundings could have been more fitly 
prepared and tempered for the group which was as the 
group in Eden before trouble came. They wandered 
about together through the glen, and by the side of the 
shining brown trout stream, which glowed and smiled 
among the rocks, reflecting every ray and every cloud as 
it hurried and sparkled along, always in haste, yet always 
at leisure. They lingered here and there, in a spot which 
was still more beautiful than all the others, though not so 


Ill 


beautiful as the next, which tempted them a little further 
on. Sometimes Ronald’s rod was taken out and screwed 
together ; sometimes even flung over a dark pool, where 
there were driftings and leapings of trout, but pulled in 
again before, as Lily said, any harm was done. ‘‘ For 
why should any peaceful creature get a sharp hook in its 
jaw because you and me are happy ? ” she said. “ That’s 
no reason.” Ronald, but for the pride of having some- 
thing to carry back in his basket, was much of her opinion. 
He was not a devoted fisherman. Their happiness was no 
reason, clearly, for interfering with that of the meanest 
thing that lived. And they talked about every thing in 
heaven and earth, not only of their own affairs, though they 
were interesting enough. Lily, who for a month had 
spoken to nobody except Beenie, save for that one visit to 
the Manse, had such an accumulation of remark and obser- 
vation to get through on her side, and so much to demand 
from him, that the moments, and, indeed, the hours, flew. 
It is astonishing, even without the impulse of a long parting 
and sudden meeting, what wells of conversation flow forth 
between two young persons in their circumstances. Per- 
haps it would not sound very wise or witty if any cool 
spectator listened, but it is always delightful to the 
people concerned, and Lily was not the first comer, so to 
speak. She was full of variety, full of whim and fancy, 
no heaviness or monotony in her. Perhaps this matters 
less at such a moment of life than at any other. The dull- 
est pair find the art of entertaining each other, of keeping 
up their mutual interest. And now that the cold chill of 
doubt in respect to Ronald was removed from her mind 
Lily flowed like the trout stream, as dauntless and as gay, 
reflecting every gleam of light. 

“ The worst thing is,” Ronald said, ‘‘ that the Vacation 
will come to an end, not now or soon. Heaven be praised ; 
but the time will come when I shall have to go back and 
pace the Parliament House, as of old, and my Lily will be 
left alone in the wilderness.” 

‘‘ Not alone, as I was before,” said Lily — never that 


112 


any more ; for now I have something to remember, and 
something to look forward to. You’ve been here, Ron- 
ald ; nothing can take that from us. I will come and 
sit on this stone, and say to myself: ‘ Here we spent the 
day ; and here we had our picnic ; and this was what 
he said.’ And I will laugh at all your jokes over 
again.” 

Ah ! ” he said, it’s but a grim entertainment that. 
I went and stood behind those curtains in that window, 
do you remember ? in George Square, and said to myself : 

‘ Here my Lily was ; and here she said ’ But, instead 

of laughing, I was much more near crying. You will not 
find much good in that.” 

“You crying ! ” she said, with the water in her eyes, 
and a little soft reproving blow of her fingers upon his 
cheek. “ I do not believe it. But I dare say I shall cry 
and then laugh. What does it matter which *? They 
are just the same for a girl. And then I shall say to my- 
self : ‘ At the New Year he is coming back again, and 
then ’ ” 

“ What shall we do at the New Year ? ” he said. “ No 
days like this then. How can I take my Lily out on the 
moor among the snow ? ” 

If I am a Lily, I am one that can bloom anywhere — 
in the snow as well as the sun.” 

“ And so you are, my dearest, making a sunshine in a 
shady place. But still we must think of that. Winter 
and summer are two different things. Cannot we find a 
friend to take us in ? ” 

“ I will tell you where we shall find a friend. You’ll 
come to the Tower with your boldest face as if it was the 
first time you had been near. And you will ask : ‘ Does 

Miss Ramsay live here ?’ And Katrin will say: ‘ ’Deed 
does she, sir. Here and no other place.’ And you will 
smite your thigh in your surprise, and say: ‘ I thought I 
had heard that ! I am a friend from Edinburgh, and I 
just stopped on the road to [here say any name you please] 
to say “ Good-day ” to the young lady, if she was here.’ 


113 


And then you will look about, and you will say : ‘ It is 
rather a lonesome place.’ ” 

“ Go on,” said Ronald, laughing ; ‘‘ I like the dialogue 
— though whether we should trust your keepers so far as 
that ” 

‘‘My keepers ! They are my best of friends ! Well, 
Katrin will look round too, and she will say, as if consider- 
ing the subject for the first time : ‘ In winter it is, maybe, 
a wee lonesome — for a young leddy. Ye’ll maybe be a 
friend of Sir Robert’s, too ? ’ And you will say ; ‘ Oh, 
yes, 1 am a great friend of Sir Robert’s.’ And she will 
open the door wide and say : ‘ Come ben, sir, come ben. 
It will be a great divert to our young leddy to see a 
visitor. And you’re kindly welcome.’ That’s what she 
will say.” 

“ Will she say all that, and shall I say all that ? Per- 
haps I shall, including that specious phrase about being a 
friend of Sir Robert’s, which would surprise Sir Robert 
very much.” 

“ Well, you know him, surely, and you are not un- 
friends. It strikes me that, to be a lawyer, Ronald, you 
are full of scruples.” 

“ What a testimonial to my virtue ! ” he said, with a 
laugh. “ But it is not scruples ; it is pure cowardice, Lily. 
Are they to be trusted ? If Sir Robert were to be written 
to, and I to be forbidden the door, and my Lily carried 
off to a worse wilderness, abroad, as he threatened ! ” 

“ I will tell you one thing : I will not go ! ” said Lily, 
“ not if Sir Robert were ten times my uncle. But you 
need not fear for Katrin. She likes me better than Sir 
Robert. You may think that singular, but so it is. And 
I am much more fun,” cried Lily, “ far more interesting ! 
I include you, and you and me together, we are a story, 
we are a romance ! And Katrin will like us better than 
one of the Waverley novels, and she will be true to us to 
the last drop of her blood.” 

“ These Highlanders, you never can be sure of them,” 
said Ronald, shaking his head. He spoke the sentiment of 
8 


114 


his time and district, which was too near the Highland line 
to put much confidence in the Celt. 

“ But she is not a Highlander. She is Aberdeen,” cried 
Lily. Beenie is a Highlander, if you call Kinloch-Rugas 
Highland, and she is as true as steel. Oh, you are a per- 
son of prejudices, Ronald ; but I trust all the world,” she 
cried, lifting her fine and shining face to the shining sky. 

And so do I,” he cried, ‘‘ to-day ! ” And they paused 
amid all considerations of the past and future to remember 
the glory of the present hour, and how sweet it was above 
every thing that it should be to-day. 

Thus the afternoon fled. They made their little table 
in the sunshine, for shade is not as desirable in a Highland 
glen as in a Southern valley, and ate their luncheon mer- 
rily together, Lily recounting, with a little shame, how 
it had been intended for Helen Blythe instead of Ronald 
Lumsden. ‘‘ I was very near telling a fib,” she said 
compunctiously, but I did not do it. I left it to Katrin’s 
imagination.” 

‘‘ Helen Blythe must have a robust appetite if all this 
was for her,” he said. “ Is this an effort of imagination 
too ? But come, Lily, we must do our duty by the view. 
There is the old brig to climb, and all the Fairy Glen to 
see.” 

I promised not to climb the old brig,” she said. 
“ But that promise, I suppose, was only to hold in case it 
was Helen Blythe that was with me, for she could give 
little help if I slipped, whereas you ” 

I ? I hope I can take care of my Lily,” said the young 
man ; and after they had packed their basket, and put 
it ready to be tied once more to Rory’s saddle, who 
was picnicking too on the grass in one continuous and 
delicate meal, they wandered off together to make the 
necessary pilgrimage, though the old brig and the 
Fairy Glen attracted but little of the attention of the 
pair, so fully engrossed in each other. They climbed the 
broken arch, however, which was half embedded in the 
slope of the bank, and overgrown with every kind of green 


115 


and flourishing thing, arm in arm, Ronald swinging his 
companion lightly over the dangerous bits, for love, while 
Lily, for love, consented to be aided, though little needing 
the aid. And how it happened will never be known, but 
their happy progress came to a sudden pause on an innocent 
bit of turf where no peril was. If it were Ronald who 
stepped false, or Lily, neither of them could tell, but in a 
moment calamity came. He disengaged himself from her, 
almost roughly, pushing her away, and thus, instead of 
dragging her with him, crashed down alone through the 
briers and bushes, with a noise which, to Lily, filled the 
air like thunder. When she had slipped and stumbled in 
her fright and anxiety after him, she found him lying, try- 
ing to laugh, but with his face contorted with pain, among 
the nettles and weeds at the bottom. ‘‘ What has hap- 
pened ? What has happened ? ” she cried. 

“ What an ass I am,” said he, “ and what a nuisance for 
you, Lily ! I believe I have sprained my ankle, of all the 
silly things to do ! and at this time, of all others, betraying 
you ! ’ ’ 

Lily, I need not say, was for a moment at her wit’s end. 
There were no ambulance classes in those days, nor attempts 
to train young ladies in the means of first help. But there 
is always the light of nature, a thing much to be trusted 
to, all the same. Lily took his handkerchief, because it 
was the largest, and bound up his foot, as far as that was 
possible, cutting open the boot with his knife ; and then 
they held a brief council of war. Ronald wished to be left 
there while she went for help, but there was no likelihood 
of obtaining help nearer than Kinloch-Rugas, and finally 
it was decided that, in some way or other, he should 
struggle on to Rory’s back, and so be led to the Manse, 
where a welcome and aid were sure to be found. It was 
a terrible business getting this accomplished, but with 
patience, and a good deal of pain, it was done at last, the 
injured foot supported tant Men que mol in the stirrup, 
and a woful little group set forth on the way to the vil- 
lage. But I do wrong to say it was a woful group, for, 


116 


though the pain made Ronald faint, and though Lily’s 
heart was full of anguish and anxiety, they both exerted 
themselves to the utmost, each for the sake of the other. 
Lily led the reluctant pony along, sometimes running by 
his side, sometimes dragging him with both her hands, too 
much occupied for thought. What would people think did 
not occur to her yet. People might think what they liked 
so long as she got him safe to the Manse. She knew that 
they would be kind to him there. But what an end it was 
to the loveliest of days : and the sun was beginning to get 
low, and the road so long. 

Oh, Rory, man ! ” cried poor Lily, apostrophizing the 
pony after the manner of Dougal. ‘‘If you would only 
go steady and go soft to-day ! To-morrow you may throw 
me if you like, and I will never mind ; but, oh, go canny, 
if there is any heart in you, to-day! ” I think that Rory 
felt the appeal by some magnetism in her touch if not by 
her words, on which point I cannot say any thing posi- 
tively ; but he did at least overcome his flightiness, and 
accomplished the last half of the road at a steady trot, 
which gave Ronald exquisite pain, and kept Lily running, 
but shortened considerably the period of their suffering. 
They were received with a great outcry of sympathy and 
compassion at the Manse, where Ronald was laid out at 
once on the big hair-cloth sofa, and his foot relieved as 
much as Helen’s skill, which was not inconsiderable, could 
do. It was he who made the necessary explanations, Lily, 
in her trouble, having quite forgot the necessity for 
them. 

“ I was so happy,” he said, “ so fortunate as to be seen 
by Miss Ramsay, who knew me — the only creature here- 
abouts who does ; and you see what she has done for me : 
helped me to struggle up, put me on her pony, and 
brought me here — a perfect good Samaritan.” 

“ Oh, don’t, don’t speak like that ! ” said Lily in her 
distress. She felt she could not at this moment bear the 
lie. Nobody had ever seen Lily Ramsay so dishevelled 
before : her hair shaken out by her run, her skirt torn 


117 


where she had caught her foot in it in her struggles to help 
Ronald, and covered with the dust of the road. 

“ She would just be that,” said Helen Blythe, receiving 
the narrative with faith undoubting, “ and what a good 
thing it was you, my dear, that knew the gentleman, and 
not a strange person ! And what a grand thing that you 
were riding upon Rory ! Just lie as quiet as you can ; the 
hot bathing will relieve the pain, and now the boot’s olf 
ye’ll be easier ; and the doctor will come in to see you as 
soon as he comes home. Don’t ye make a movement, sir, 
that ye can help. Just lie quiet, lie quiet ! that is the 
chief remedy of all.” 

“ He is Mr. Lumsden, Helen,” said Lily, composed, ‘‘ a 
friend of my uncle’s, from Edinburgh. Oh, I am glad he 
is in your hands. He had slipped down the broken arch 
at the old brig, where all the tourists go ; and I had ridden 
there to-day just to see it.” 

“ Eh, my dear, how thankful you must be,” was all 
Helen’s reply; but it seemed to Lily that the old minister 
in his big chair by the fireside gave her a glance which was 
not so all-believing as Helen’s. 

“ It was just an extraordinary piece of good luck for the 
young man,” the minister said. “ Things seldom happen 
so pat in real life. But a young lady like you. Miss Lily, 
likes the part of the good Samaritan.” 

She could not look him full in the face, and the laugh 
with which he ended his speech seemed the most cruel of 
mocking sounds to poor Lily. She put up her hands to her 
tumbled hair. 

“ May I go to your room and make myself tidy ? ” she 
said to Helen. ‘‘ I had to run most of the way with Rory, 
and my skirt so long for riding. I don’t know what sort of 
dreadful person they must have thought me in the town.” 

Nobody but will think all the better of you for your 
kindness,” said Helen, ‘‘ and we’ll soon mend your skirt, 
for there’s really little harm done. And I think you 
should have the gig from the inn to drive you back, my 
dear, for your nerves are shaken, and the afternoon’s get- 


118 


ting late, and you must not stir from here till you have 
got a good rest and a cup of tea.” 

The gig may perhaps take me back to the inn first,” 
said Ronald, “ for it is there I am staying — for the fish- 
ing,” he added, unable to keep out of his eyes a half-comic 
glance at the companion of his trouble. 

“ Indeed, you are going back to no inn,” said Helen ; 

you are just going to stay at the Manse, where you will 
be much better attended to ; and Lily, my dear, you’ll 
come and see Mr. Lumsden, that owes so much to you 
already, and that will help to make him feel at home 
here.” 

But when Lily came down stairs, smoothed and brushed, 
with her hair trim, and the flush dying off her cheeks, and 
her skirt mended, though in many ways the accident had 
ended most fortunately, she could not meet the smile in the 
old minister’s eyes. 


CHAPTER XIV 

Theee was great excitement in the Tower when the gig 
from ‘‘ the toun ” was seen slowly climbing the brae. 
Almost every-body in the house was in commotion, and 
Beenie, half crazy with anxiety, had been at the window 
for hours watching for Lily’s return, and indulging in 
visions and conjectures which her companions knew noth- 
ing of. All that Dougal and Katrin thought of was an 
accident. Though, as they assured each other, Rory’s bark 
was worse than his bite, it was yet quite possible that in 
one of his cantrips he might have thrown the inexperienced 
rider in her long skirt ; and even if she was not hurt, she 
might have found it impossible to catch him again and 
might have to toil home on foot, which would account 
for the lateness of the hour. Or she might have sprained 
her ankle or even broken her arm as she fell, and been un- 
able to move. When these fears began to take shape, the 


119 


boy had been sent off flying on the black pony to the scene 
of the picnic, the only argument against this hypothesis 
being that, had any such accident happened, Rory by this 
time would in all probability have reached home by him- 
self. Beenie, I need not say, was tormented by other 
fears. Was it possible that they had fled together, these 
two who had now fully discovered that they could not live 
without each other ? Had he carried her away, as it had 
been on the cards he should have done three months ago ? 
and a far better solution than any other of the problem. 
These ideas alternated in Robina’s mind with the sugges- 
tion of an accident. She did not believe in an accident. 
Lily had always been masterful, able to manage any thing 
that came in her way, beast or bird,” as Beenie said, 
and was it likely she would be beaten by Rory, a little 
Highland pony, when she had ridden big horses by Sir 
Robert’s side, and never stumbled ? Na. She’ll just 
have gone away with him,” Beenie said to herself, and 
though she felt wounded that the plan had not been 
revealed to her, she was not sorry, only very anxious, feel- 
ing that Lily would certainly find some opportunity of 
sending her a word, and telling her where to join them. 
“ It is, maybe, the best way out of it,” she said over and 
over again to herself, and accordingly she was less moved 
by Katrin’s wailings than that good woman could under- 
stand. Katrin and Dougal were out upon the road, while 
Beenie kept her station at the window. And Dougal ’s 
fears for the young lady were increased by alarms about 
his pony, an older and dearer friend than Lily. ‘‘If the 
poor beast has broken his knees, I’ll ne’er forgive myself 
for letting that bit lassie have the charge of him alone.” 

“ The charge of him ! ” said his wife in high indigna- 
tion, “ and her that has, maybe, twisted her ankle, or 
broken her bonnie airm, the darlin’, and a’ the fault of that 
ill-willy beast. And it’s us that has the chairge of her.” 

This argument silenced Dougal for the moment, but he 
still continued to think quite as much of Rory as of the 
young lady, whichever of the two was responsible for the 


120 


trouble which had occurred. When the boy came back to 
report that there was nothing to be found at the old brig 
but great marks on the ruin, as if somebody had “ slithered 
down,” branches torn away, and the herbage crushed at 
the bottom, the alarm in the house rose high. And Dongal 
had fixed his cap firmly on the top of his head, as a man 
prepared for any emergency, and taken his staff in his hand 
to take the short cut across the moor, and find out for him- 
self what the catastrophe had been, when a shout from 
Sandy on the top of the bank, and Beenie at the window, 
stopped further proceedings. There was Lily, pale, but 
smiling, in the gig from the inn, and Rory, tossing his red 
head, very indignant at the undignified position in which 
he found himself, tied to that shabby equipage. “The 
puir beast, just nickering with joy at the sight of home, 
but red with rage to be trailed at the tail of an inn geeg,” 
Dougal said, hurrying to loose the rope and lead the suf- 
ferer in. He was not without concern for Lily, but she 
was evidently none the worse, and he asked no more. 

“ I have had such an adventure,” she said, as soon as 
she was within hearing, “ but I am not hurt, and nothing 
has happened to me. Such an adventure ! What do you 
think, Beenie ? A gentleman climbed up the old brig 
while we were there, and slipped and fell ; and when I ran 
to see, who should it be but Mr. Lumsden, Ronald Lums- 
den, whom we used to see so much in Edinburgh.” Here 
Lily’s countenance bloomed so suddenly red out of her 
paleness that Katrin had a shock of understanding, and 
saw it all in a moment, if not more than there was to see. 
“ And he had sprained his ankle,” Lily said, a paleness 
following the flush ; “he couldn’t move. You may fancy 
what a state we were in.” 

“ Eh,” said Katrin, with her eyes fixed on Lily’s face, 
“ what a good thing Miss Eelen was with you, for she 
kens as much about that sort o’ thing as the doctor 
himsel’.” 

“ I got him on the pony at last,” said Lily, “ and we 
bound up his foot, and then w'e took him to the Manse. It 


121 


was the nearest, and the doctor just at their door. But, 
oh, what a race I had with the pony, leading him, and 
sometimes he led me till I had to run ; and I put my foot 
through my skirt, see ? We mended it up a little at the 
Manse, and drew it out of the gathers. But look here : a 
job for you, Beenie. And my hair came down about my 
shoulders, and if you had seen the figure I was, running 
along the road ” 

“ But Miss Eelen with ye made a’ right,” said Katrin. 
“Ah, what a blessing that Miss Eelen was with ye.” 

Lily was getting out of the gig, from the high seat of 
which she had hastened to make her first explanations. It 
was not an easy thing getting out of a high gig in those 
days, and “ the geeg from the inn” was, naturally, without 
any of the latest improvements. She had to turn her back 
to the spectators as she clambered down, and if her laugh 
sounded a little unsteady, that was quite natural. “ She 
is, indeed, as good as the doctor,” she said ; “if you had 
seen how she cut open the boot and made him comfortable ! 
And Rory behaved very well, too,” she said. “ I spoke to 
him in his ear as you do, Dougal. I said : ‘ Rory, Rory, 
my bonnie man, go canny to-day ; you can throw me to- 
morrow, if you like, an I’ll nevermind, but, oh, go canny 
to-day.’ And you did, Rory, you dear little fellow, and 
dragged me, with my hair flying like a wild creature, 
along the road,” she added, with a laugh, taking the 
rough and tossing head into her hands, and aiming a 
kiss at Rory’s shaggy forehead. But the pony was 
not used to such dainties and tossed himself out of her 
hands. 

“ You’re awfu’ tired. Miss Lily, though you’re putting 
so good a face upon it, and awfu’ shaken with the excite- 
ment, and a’ that. And to think o’ you being the one to 
find him — just the right person, the one that knew him — 
and to think of him being here, Maister Lumsden, touring 
or shooting or something, I suppose.” 

Beenie’s speech ended spasmodically in a fierce grip of 
the arm with which Lily checked her as she went upstairs. 


122 


What need have you,” said the young lady in an 
angry whisper, ‘‘ to burden your mind with lies ? Say I 
have to do it, and, oh, I hate it ! but you have no need. 
Hold your tongue and keep your conscience free.” 

‘‘ Eh, Miss Lily,” said Beenie in the same tone, “ I’m 
no wanting to be better than you. If ye tell a lee, and it’s 
but an innocent lee. I’ll tell one too. If you’re punished 
for it, what am I that I shouldna take my share with my 
mistress ? But about the spraining o’ the ankle, my 
bonnie dear : that’s a’ true ? ” 

Lily answered with a laugh to the sudden doubt in 
Robina’s eyes. She was very much excited, too much so 
to feel how tired she was, and capable of nothing without 
either laughter or tears. “ Oh, yes, it’s quite true ; and, 
oh, Beenie, he is badly hurt and suffering a great deal of 
pain. Poor Ronald ! But he will be safe in Helen’s 
hands. If he were only out of pain ! Perhaps it is a good 
thing, Beenie. That is what he whispered when I came 
away. Oh, how hard it was to come away and leave him 
there ill, and his foot so bad ! but I am to go down to- 
morrow, and it will be a duty to stay as long as I can to 
cheer him up and to save Helen trouble, who has so many 
other things to do. I am not hard-hearted ; but he says 
himself, if he were only out of pain, perhaps it’s a good 
thing.” 

.Here Lily stopped and cried, and murmured among her 
tears : If it had only been me ! It’s easier for a girl to 
bear pain than a man.” 

“ But if it had been you. Miss Lily, it would have been 
no advantage. You can go to him at the Manse, but he 
could not have come to you here.” 

“ That is true,” cried Lily, laughing; ‘‘ you are a clever 
Beenie to think of that. But how am I to live till to- 
morrow, all the long night through, and all the morning 
without news ? ” 

A young gentleman doesna die of a sprained ankle,’' 
said Beenie sedately, and if you are a good bairn, and 
will go early to bed, and take care of yourself, I’ll see that 


123 


the boy goes into the toiin the first thing in the morning 
to hear how he is.” 

‘‘ You are a kind Beenie,” cried Lily, clasping her arms 
about her maid’s neck. But it was a long time before 
Robina succeeded in quieting the girl’s excitement. She 
had to hear the story again half-a-dozen times over, now 
in its full reality, now in the form which it had to bear for 
the outside world, with all the tears and laughter which 
accompanied it. “And he grew so white, so white, I 
thought he was going to faint,” said Lily, herself growing 
pale. 

“ I’m thankful ye were spared that. It is very distress- 
ing to see a person faint. Miss Lily.” 

“ And then he cheered up and gave a grin in the middle 
of his pain : I will not call it a smile, for it was no more 
than a grin, half fun and half torture. Poor Ronald ! oh, 
my poor lad, my poor lad ! ” 

“ He was a lucky lad to get you to do all that for him. 
Miss Lily.” 

“ Me ! What did it matter if it was me or you or a 
fishwife,” said Lily, “ when a man is in such dreadful 
pain?” 

They discussed it over and over again from every point 
of view, until Lily fell asleep from sheer weariness in the 
hundredth repetition of the story. Beenie, for her part, 
was exceedingly discreet at supper that evening. Indeed, 
she was altogether too discreet to be successful with a 
quick observer like Katrin, who saw, by the extreme pre- 
cautions of her friend, and the close-shut lips with which 
Beenie minced and bridled, and made little remarks about 
nothing in particular, that there was something to con- 
ceal. Katrin was very near to penetrating the mystery 
even now, but she said nothing except those somewhat 
ostentatious congratulations to all parties on the fact that 
Miss Eelen was there, which were designed to show the 
growing conviction that Miss Eelen was not there at all. 
Beenie was quite quick enough to perceive this, but she exer- 
cised much control over herself, and made no signs before 


124 


Dougal. He was chiefly occupied by the address to Rory 
which Lil}^ had made, which struck him as an excellent 
joke, and which he repeated to himself from time to time, 
with a laugh which came from the depths of his being. 
‘‘ She said till him : ‘ Ye can throw me the morn, and wel- 
come, if ye’ll go canny the day.’ Losh, what a spirit she 
has, that lassie, and the fun in her ! ‘ Go canny the day, 

and ye can throw me, if ye like, the morn.’ And Rory to 
take it a’ in like a Christian ! ” He laughed till he held 
his sides, and then he said feebly : ‘‘It ’ll be the death of 
me.” 

The joke did not strike the women as so brilliant. “ I 
hope he’ll no take her at her word,” said Beenie. 

“ Na, na, he’ll no take her at her word : he’s ower much 
of a gentleman ; but if he does, you’ll see she’ll stand it and 
never a word in her head. That’s what I call real spirit, 
feared at nothing. ‘ Go canny the day, and you can throw 
me, if you like, the morn.’ I think I never heard any 
thing so funny in a’ my born days.” 

“You’re easy pleased,” said his wife, though she was 
quite inclined to consider Lily’s speeches as brilliant, and 
herself as the flower of human kind, but to let a man sup- 
pose that he was the discoverer of all this was not to be 
thought of. She communicated, however, some of her 
suspicions to Dougal, for want of any other confidant, 
when they were alone in the stillness of their chamber. 
“ I have my doubts,” said Katrin, “ that it was nae sur- 
prise to her at a’ to find the gentleman, and that it was 
him that was the Miss Eelen that met her at the auld 
brig.” 

“ Him that was Miss Eelen ? And how could he be Miss 
Eelen, a muckle man ? ” said Dougal. 

“ Oh, ye gowk ! ” said his wife, and she put back her 
discoveries into her bosom, and said no more. 

Lily was very restless next day until she was able to get 
away on her charitable mission. “ I must go now,” she 
said, “ to help to take care of him, or Helen will have no 
time for her other business, and she has so much to do.” 


125 


‘‘ You maun take care and no find another gentleman 
with a broken foot,” said Katrin ; “ you mightn’t be able 
to manage Rory so well a second time.” 

“ Oh, I am not afraid of Rory,” the girl cried. ‘‘ I just 
speak to him, as Dougal does, in his ear.” 

“ Mind you what you’ve promised him. Miss Lily,” said 
that authority, chuckling; “he is to cowp you over his 
head, if he likes, the day.” 

“ He’ll not do that! ” cried Lily confidently, waving her 
hand to the assembled household, who were standing out- 
side the door to see her start. What a diversion she was, 
with her comings and goings, her adventures and mishaps, 
to that good pair ! How dull it must have been for them 
before Lily came to excite their curiosity and brighten 
their sense of humor. Dougal returned to his work, shak- 
ing once more with a laugh that went down to his boots 
and thrilled him all over, saying to himself : “ He’s ower 
much of a gentleman to take her at her word ; ” while 
Katrin stood shading her eyes with her hand, and looking 
wistfully after the young creature in her confidence and 
gayety of youth. “Eh, but I hope the lad’s worthy of 
her,” was what Katrin said. 

Ronald was lying once more upon the big hair-cloth sofa, 
as she had left him. He would not sta}^ in bed, Helen 
lamented, though it would have been so much better for 
him. “ But a simple sprain,” she said, “ no complication. 
If I could have persuaded him to bide quiet in his bed, he 
would have been well at the end of the week ; but nothing 
would please him but to be down here, limping down stairs, 
at the risk of a fall, with two sticks and only one foot. My 
heart was in my mouth at every step.” 

“ But he is none the worse,” cried Lily, “ and I can 
understand Mr. Lumsden, Helen. It is far, far more 
cheery here, where he can see every thing that is going 
on, and have you and Mr. Blythe to talk to. A sprain 
makes your ankle bad, but not your mind.” 

“ That is true,” said Ronald, “ and what I have been 
laboring to say, but had not the wit. My ankle is bad. 


126 


but not my mind. I am in no such hurry to get well as 
Miss Blythe thinks. Don’t you see,” he said, looking up 
in Lily’s face, as she stood beside him, ‘‘ in what clover 
I am here ? ” 

Lily answered the look, but not the words, A tremu- 
lous sense of ease and happiness arose in her being. The 
moor was sweet when he was there, and to look for that 
hour in the evening had been enough for the first days to 
make her happy. But to start out to meet him, nobody 
knowing, glad as she had been to do it, cost Lily a pang. 
There are some people to whom the stolen joys are the 
most sweet, but Lily was not one of these. The clandes- 
tine wounded her sense of delicacy, if not her conscience. 
She was doing no wrong, she had said to herself, but yet 
it felt like wrong so long as it was secret, so long as a 
certain amount of deception was necessary to procure it. 
She was like the house-maid, stealing out to meet her lover. 
To the house* maid there was nothing unbecoming in that, 
but there was to Lily. She had suffered even while she 
was happy. But now the clandestine was all over. The 
constant presence of the old minister, who regarded them 
with eyes in which there was too much insight and satire 
for Lily’s peace of mind, was troublesome, but it was 
protection ; it set her heart at rest. The accident restored 
all at once the ease of nature. “ It is the best thing that 
could have happened,” Ronald said, when Helen left them 
alone, and Mr. Blythe had hidden himself behind the 
large, broad sheet of The Scotsman^ the new clever 
Whig paper which had lately begun to bring the luxury of 
news twice a week to the most distant corners of the land. 
“ I don’t mean to get better at the end of the week. It 
was a dreadful business yesterday, but I see the advantage 
of it now.” 

‘‘Was it so dreadful yesterday, poor Ronald?” she 
said in the voice of a dove, cooing at his ear. 

“ It was not delightful yesterday, though I had the 
sweetest Lily. But now I warn you, Lily, I mean to keep 
ill as long as I can. You will come and stay with me ; it 


127 


is your duty, for nobody knows me at Kinloch-Rugas but 
only you, and you are the good Samaritan. You put me 
on your own beast, and brought me to the inn.” 

‘‘ Oh, do not speak like that, do not put me in mind 
that we are both deceivers ! I have forgotten it, now that 
we are here.” 

‘‘We are no deceivers,” he said. “ It is all quite true ; 
you put me on your own beast. And where did you get 
all that strength, Lily ? You must have almost lifted me 
in your arms, you slender little thing, a heavy fellow like 
me ! ” 

“ Oh, you did very well on your one foot,” said Lily, 
trying to laugh ; but she shuddered and the tears came 
into her eyes. She was aching still with the strain that 
necessity had put upon her, but he did not think of that — 
he only thought how strong she was. 

“ Here, you two,” said the minister, “I’m going to 
read you a bit out of the paper. It is just full of stories, 
as good as if I had told them myself.” 

“ Oh, never heed with your stories, father,” said Helen ; 
“ keep them till Lily goes away, for she has a wonderful 
way with her, and keeps things going. Our patient will 
not he dull while Lily is here.” 

Was that all she meant, or did Helen, too, suspect some- 
thing ? The two lovers interchanged a glance, half of 
alarm, half of laughter, but Helen went and came, uncon- 
scious, sometimes pausing to turn the cushion under the 
bad foot, or to suggest a more comfortable position, with 
nothing but kindness in her mild eyes. 


CHAPTER XV 

Ronald was, as he had prophesied, a long time getting 
well. Even Helen was a little puzzled, she who thought 
no evil, at the persistency of his suffering ; at the end of 
the second week he could, indeed, stumble about with his 


128 


two sticks, but still complained of great pain when he tried 
to walk. The prolonged presence of the visitor began at 
last to become a little trouble, even to the hospitable Manse, 
where strangers were entertained so kindly, but where there 
was but one maid-of-all-work, with the occasional services, 
chiefly outdoors, of the minister’s man ; and an invalid of 
Ronald’s robust character, whose presence necessitated 
better fare and gave a great deal of additional work, was 
a serious addition both to the expenses and labors of the 
house. It would have been much against the traditions of 
the Manse to betray this in any way ; but there was no 
doubt that the minister was a little more sharp in his 
speeches, and apt to throw a secret dart, in the disguise of 
a jest, at the guest whose convalescence was so prolonged. 
Lily rode down from Dalrugas every day to help to nurse 
the patient, that Helen might not have the whole burden 
of his helplessness on her shoulders ; but Lily, too, became 
aware that, delightful though this freedom of meeting was, 
and the long hours of intercourse which were made legiti- 
mate as being a form of duty, they were beginning to last 
too long and awaken uneasy thoughts. Helen, who was 
so tender to her at flrst, became a little wistful as the days 
went on. The gentle creature could think no harm, but 
perhaps it was her father’s remarks which put it into her 
head that the two young people were making a convenience 
of her hospitality, and that all was not honest in the tale 
which had brought so unlooked-for a visitor under the 
shelter of her roof. And then the village, as was inevita- 
ble, made many remarks. Bless me, but the young leddy 
at Dalrugas is an awfu’ constant visitor. Miss Eelen. She 
comes just as if she was coming to her lessons every 
morning at the same hour.” She is the kindest heart in 
the world,” said Helen. ^‘You see, this gentleman that 
sprained his foot is a friend of her uncle’s, and she could 
not take him to Dalrugas, where there is nobody but ser- 
vants ; and she will not let me have all the trouble of him. 
A man, when he is ill, takes a great deal of attendance,” 
said the minister’s daughter, with a smile. 


129 


Losh ! I would just let liim attend upon himsel’,” said 

one. 

“ He should send for a sister, or somebody belonging to 
him,” said another. 

“ Oh, not that,” said Helen — I could not put up a lady, 
there is but little room in the Manse — and with Miss Lily’s 
help we can pull through.” 

‘‘ He should get an easy post-chaise from Aberdeen — 
there’s plenty easy carriages to be got there nowadays — 
and go back to his ain folk. He’s a son of Lurnsden of 
Pontalloch, they tell me ; that’s not so far but that he 
might get there in a day.” 

“ I have no doubt he will do that as soon as he is well 
enough,” said Helen ; but all these remarks made her un- 
easy. Impossible for Scotch hospitality to give a hint, to 
intimate a thought, that the visitor had overstayed his 
welcome — and a man that had been hurt and was, perhaps, 
still suffering! ‘‘Ho, no,” she said, shaking her head. 
But it troubled her gentle mind that Lily’s visits should be 
so remarked, and it was strange — or was it only the village 
gossip that made her feel that it was strange ? Lily per- 
ceived all this with an uneasy perception of new elements 
in the air. 

“ Ronald,” she said one day, when they were alone for a 
few minutes, “ you could put your foot to the ground with- 
out hurting when you try. You will have to go away.” 

“ Why should I go away ? ” he said, with a laugh. “ I 
am very comfortable. It is not luxury, but it does very 
well when I see my Lily every day ” 

“ But, oh,” she cried, the color coming to her cheeks, 
which had been growing pale these few days, “there are 
things of more consequence than Lily ! The Manse people 
are not rich ” 

“You need not tell me that,” he said, looking round at 
the shabby furniture with a smile. 

“ But, oh, Ronald, 3^ou don’t see ! They try to get nice 
things for you, they spend a great deal of trouble upon you, 
and they were glad at first — but it is now a fortnight.” 

9 


130 


Lily, my love,” he said quickly, if you have ceased to 
care for this chance of meeting every day — if you want me 
to go away, of course I will go.” 

^‘Do you think it likely I should have ceased to care?” 
she said, with tears in her eyes. ‘‘ But we must think of 
other people, too.” 

‘‘Thinking of other people is generally a mistake. We 
all know how to take care of ourselves best — unless it is 
here and there some one like you, if there is any one like 
my Lily. But, dear, I give very little trouble. What is 
there to do for me ? Another bed to make, another knife 
and fork — or spoon, I should say, for we have broth, broth, 
and nothing but broth — and a little grouse now and then, 
sent to them by somebody, and therefore costing nothing.” 

“ It is ungenerous to say that ! ” Lily cried. 

“ My dearest, you will tell me what present I can send 
them when at last I am forced to tear myself away. A 
good present that will make up to them — a chest of tea, or 

a barrel of wine, or But I don’t want to go awa}^, 

Lily; I would rather stay here and see you every day until 
I am forced to go back to my work.” 

“Oh, and so would I!” cried Lily; “but,” she added, 
with a sigh, “we must think of them. Mr. Blythe sits 
always, always in this room. It is the sunny room in the 
house, and he likes it best. But you see he has gone into 
his little study this day or two — which is very dreary — all 
because we are here.” 

“Very considerate of him,” said Ronald, with a laugh, 
“ if that is a reason for going away, that they now leave 
us sometimes alone. I fear it will not move me, Lily; 
you must find a better than that.” 

“Oh, Ronald, will you not see?” cried Lily in distress. 
But what could a girl do ? She could not put understand- 
ing into his eyes nor consideration into his heart. He was 
willing to take advantage of these good people, and the 
inducement was strong. She spoke against her own heart 
when she urged him to go away, and she was glad to be 
laughed out of her scruples, to be told of the “ good 


131 


present” that would make up for every thing, of the grati- 
tude that he would always feel, and his conviction that he 
gave very little trouble, and added next to nothing to their 
expenses. “Broth is not expensive/’ he said, “and the 
grouse, you know, Lily, the grouse ! ” Lily turned her 
head away, sick at heart. Oh, it was not how he should 
speak of the people who were so kind to him ; but still, 
when she mounted Rory — now quite docile and accus- 
tomed to trot every day into Kinloch-Rugas — in the after- 
noon, she could not but be glad to think that she might 
still come to-morrow, that there was at least another day. 

One of these afternoons the parlor was full of people, 
under whose eyes Lily could not continue to sit by the side 
of the sofa and minister to the robust invalid’s wants. 
There was the doctor, who gave him a little slap on his 
leg and said: “I congratulate ye on a perfect cure. You 
can get up and walk when you like, like the man in the 
Bible.” And the school-master’s wife, who said: “Eh, what 
a good thing for you, Mr. Lumsden, and you been on your 
back so long.” And there was the assistant and successor, 
Mr. Douglas, who was visibly anxious to get rid of all in- 
terlopers and speak a word to Helen. Oh, why did he not 
follow Helen when she went out to open the door for her 
visitors, and leave Lily free to say once more to Ronald, 
but more energetically: “You must go ! ” 

“ I was wanting to say, sir,” said Mr. Douglas, “ and I 
may add that I have Miss Eelen’s opinion all on my side, 
that I would like very much if you would say a parting 
word to the lads that are going out to Canada. We have 
taken a great deal of trouble with them, and a word from 
the minister ” 

“ You are the minister yourself, Douglas ; they know 
more of you than they do of me.” 

“Not so, Mr. Blythe. I am your assistant, and Miss 
Eelen she is your daughter and the best friend they ever 
had ; but it’s your blessing the callants want, and a word 
from you ” 

“My blessing ! ” the old man said, with an uneasy laugh. 


133 


^‘You’re forgetting, my 3^oung man, that tliere’s no sacer- 
dotal pretensions in the auld Kirk.” 

Yon blessed them when they were christened, sir, and 
you blessed them and gave them tlie right hand of fellow- 
ship when the}'' came to the Lord’s table. I’m thinking 
nothing of sacerdotalism. I’m thinking of human nature. 
We have no bishops, but while we have ordained ministers 
we must always have fatliers in God.” 

Mr. Blythe had never been of this new-fangled type of 
devotion. He had been an old Moderate, very shy of over- 
much religion, and relying upon habit and tradition and a 
good deal of wholesome neglect. But the young man’s 
earnestness, backed as it was by the serious liglit in Helen’s 
eyes, brought a color to his old face. He was a little 
ashamed of the importance given to him, and lialf angry at 
the young people’s high-flown notions. I am not sure,” he 
said, “ that I go with you, Douglas, nor with Eelen eitlier, 
in your dealings with these lads. You just cultivate a 
kind of forced religion in them, that makes a fine show for 
a moment ; it’s the seed that fell by the wayside and 
sprang up quickly, but had no root in itself.” 

We can never tell that, sir,” said the assistant ; ‘‘ it may 
help them when they have no ordinances to mind them of 
their duty. If they remember their Creator in the days of 
their youth ” 

“ ’Deed,” said the old minister, “ it is just as often as not 
to forget every thing all the quicker when they come to 
man’s estate. Solomon knew mainy things, but not the lads 
in a parish so near the Highlant line.” 

Anyway, father, it will be kindly like, and them going 
so far, far away.” 

“That is just it,” said Mr. Blythe : “ why should they go 
far, far away ? Why couldn’t ye let them jog on as their 
fathers did before them ? I’m not an advocate for emi- 
gration. There are plenty of things the lads could do 
without leaving their own country. Let them go to Glas- 
gow, where there’s work for every-body, or to the South. 
You think you can do every thing with your arrangements 


133 


and your exhortations, and looking after more than ye 
were ever asked to look after. I have never approved of 
all these meetings and things, and your classes and your 
lessons, and all the fyke you make about a few country 
callants. Let them alone to their fathers’ advice and their 
mothers’. You may be sure the women will all warn them 
to keep off the drink — and much good it will do, whatever 
you may say, either them or you.” 

“But just a word of farewell, sir,” pleaded the assistant ; 
“ we ask no more.” 

“ And that is just a great deal too much in present cir- 
cumstances,” cried the old minister. “ Where would ye 
have me speak to them — a dozen big country lads, like 
colts out of the stable ? I cannot go out to the cold vestry 
at night, me that seldom leaves the house at all. And the 
dining-room is too small, and what other room have we 
free ? Eelen, you know that as well as me. I cannot 
have them up in my bedchalraer, and the kitchen, with 
lasses in it, would be no place for such a ceremonial. No, 
no ; we have no room, that is true.” 

“ I hope, sir,” said Ronald from his sofa, “ you are not 
saying this from consideration for me. I’d like nothing 
better than to see the boys, and hear your address to them. 
It would be good, I am sure, and I am as much in need of 
good advice as any of them can be.” 

“You are very considerate, Mr. Lumsden,” said the 
minister, after a pause. “ It is a great thing to have an 
inmate that takes so much thought. But how can I tell 
that it would not be bad for you in your delicate state, 
with your nurses at your side all the day ? ” 

“ Delicate ! I am not delicate ! ” cried Ronald, with 
a flush. “ It is only, you know, this confounded foot.” 

“Well, Douglas,” said the minister, “between Mr. 
Lumsden^s confoondit foot and your confoondit perti- 
nacit}^, what am I to do ? Since your patient, Eelen, is 
so kind and permits the use of our best parlor, have them 
in, have ben your callants. I must not be less gracious 
than my own guest,” the old man said. 


134 


Lily went away trembling after this scene, giving 
Ronald a beseeching glance, but she had no opportunity 
for a word. Next day, still tremulous, she returned, to 
find him still there, a little defiant, not to be driven out. 
But a short time after, when she was again preparing to 
go into the “ toun ” — without any pleasant looks now from 
her household, or complaisance on the part of Dougal, who 
openly bemoaned his pony — the whole population of Dal- 
rugas turned out to see the inn “ geeg ” once more climb- 
ing the brae. It contained Ronald and his portmanteau, 
speeding off to catch the coach, but incapable, as he said, in 
the hearing of every -body, of going away without thanking 
and saying farewell to his kind nurse. “Do you know 
what this young lady did for me ? ” he said to the little 
company, which included Rory, ready saddled, and the 
black pony harnessed, with the boy at his head. “ She 
lifted me, I think, from where I lay, and put me on her 
own beast, like the good Samaritan. She was more than 
the good Samaritan to me. Look at her, like a fairy 
princess, and me a heavy lump, almost fainting, and with 
but one foot. That is what charity can do.” 

“ Well, it was a wonderful thing,” Katrin allowed, “but 
maist more than that was riding down ance errand to the 
town to take care of ye every day.” 

“ Ah, that was for Miss Blj^the’s sake and not mine,” he 
said. “ May I come in. Miss Ramsay, to give you her 
message ? Oh, Robina, I am glad to see you here. I can 
carry the last news to Sir Robert, and tell him how both 
mistress and maid are thriving on the moor.” 

It was all false, false, as false as words that were true 
enough in themselves could be. Lily ran up the spiral 
stair, while Beenie helped him to follow. The girl’s heart 
was beating high with more sensations than she could dis- 
criminate. This was the parting, then, after so long a 
time together ; the farewell, which was more dreadful than 
words could say — and yet she was glad he was going. He 
washer own true-love, and nobody was like him in the world, 
and yet Lily’s mind revolted against every word he said. 


135 


Why did you say all that ? ” she cried, breathless, when 
they were alone. ‘‘ It was not wanted, surely, here ! ” 

“ Necessary fibs,” he said. You are too particular, 
Lily, for me that am only carrying out my role. You 
see, I am obeying you and going away at last.” 

‘‘ Oh, Ronald, it was not that I wanted you to go away.” 

‘^No, if I could have gone away, yet stayed all the same. 
But one can’t do two opposite things at the same time. 
And, Lily, it must be good-by now — for a little while. 
You will look out for me at the New Year.” 

“Do you call it just a little while to the New Year?” 
she cried, with the tears in her eyes. 

“Three months, or a little more. I shall not come to 
Kinloch-Rugas ; I’ll find a lodging in some little farm. 
And in the meantime you will write to me, Lily, and I will 
write to you.” 

“Yes, Ronald,” she said, giving him both her hands. 
Was this to be all ? It was not for her to ask ; it was for 
him to say : 

“My bonnie Lily! If I could but carry you off, never 
to part more ! But if nothing happens to release you, if 
Sir Robert does not relent, mind, my dearest, we must 
make up our minds and take it into our own hands. He is 
not to keep us apart forevei'. You will let me know all 
that goes on, and whether those people down stairs have 
reported the matter ; and I, for my part, will take my 
measures. When we meet again, every thing will be 
clearer. And, Lily, on your side, you will tell me every 
thing, that we may see our way.” 

“ There will be nothing to tell you, Ronald. There will 
be no report sent ; Uncle Robert, I think, has forgotten 
my existence. There will be nothing, nothing to say but 
that it is weary living alone here on the moor.” 

“ Not more weary than my life in Edinburgh, pacing up 
and down the Parliament House, and looking out for work. 
But we’ll see what is going to happen before the New 
Year; and I will send the present to those good Manse folk, 
and you will keep up with them, for the}^ may be very useful 


m 


friends. Is it time for me to go? Well, I will go if I 
must ; and good-by for the present, my darling, good-by 
till the New Year ! ” 

Was it possible that he was gone, that it was all over, 
and Lily left again alone on the moor ? She ran to Beenie’s 
room, which was on the other side of the house, to watch 
the inn “ geeg ” as long as it was in sight. Nothing is 
ever said of what is intended to be said in a hasty last 
meeting like this. It was worse than no meeting at all, 
leaving all the ravelled ends of parting. And was it true 
that all was over, and Ronald gone and nothing more to be 
done or said ? 


CHAPTER XVI 

The dead calm into which Lily fell after all the agita- 
tions of this wonderful period was like death itself, she 
thought, after the tumult and commotion of a climax 
of life. Those days during which she had trotted down to 
the village on Rory, the mountain breezes in her face, and 
all the warmest emotions stirred in her breast, days full of 
anxiety and expectation, sometimes of more painful feel- 
ings, agitations of all kinds, but threaded through and 
through with the consciousness that for hours to come she 
would be with her lover, ministering to his wants, hearing 
him speak, going over and over with him, in the low- 
voiced talk to which the old minister behind his news- 
paper gave, or was supposed to give, no heed, their own 
prospects and hopes, their plans for tlie future — all those 
things that are more engrossing and delightful to talk of 
than any other subjects in heaven or earth — were different 
from all the days that had passed over her before. Her 
youthful existence was like a dream, thrown back into the 
distance by the superior force and meaning of all that had 
happened since : both the loneliness and the society, the 
bitter time of self-experience and solitude, the joy of the 
reunion, the love so crossed and mingled which had 


137 


grown with greater intensity with every chance. The 
little simple Lily who had “ fallen in love,” as she thought, 
with Ronald Lumsden, as she might have fallen in love 
with any one of a half-dozen of young men, was very, very 
different from the Lily who had been torn out of her 
natural life on his account, who had doubted him and 
found him wanting, who had been converted into the faith 
of an enthusiast in him, and conviction that it was she, 
and not he, that was in the wrong. Their stolen meetings 
on the moor, which had startled her back into the joy of 
existence, which had been so few, yet so sweet; their little 
meal together, which was like a high ceremony and sacra- 
ment of a deeper love and union ; the tremendous excite- 
ment of the accident, and the agitated chapter of constant 
yet disturbed intercourse which followed (disturbed at last 
by a renewed creeping in of the old doubts, and anxiety to 
push him forward, to make him act, to make him think 
not always of himself, as he was so apt to do) — all these 
things had formed an epoch in her life, behind which 
every thing was childish and vague. She herself was not 
the same. It happens often in a woman’s life that the 
change from youth and its lighter atmosphere of natural, 
simple things comes before the mind is developed, before 
the character is able to bear that wonderful transforma- 
tion. Lily at first had been essentially in this condition. 
Her trial came to her before she had strength for it, and 
every new point of progress was marked, so to speak, with 
a new wound, quickly healed over, as became her youth, 
yet leaving a scar, as all internal wounds do. Even when 
the thrill of happiness had been in her young frame and 
mind it had been intensified by a thrill of pain : the pang 
of secrecy, the sharp sting of falsehood — falsehood which 
was abhorrent to Lily’s nature. She had laughed as other 
girls laugh at the stratagems of lovers, their devices to 
escape the observation of jealous parents, the evils that are 
said to be legitimate in love and war. Nobody is so severe 
as to judge harshly these aberrations from duty. Even 
the sternest parent smiles at them when they are not 


138 


directed against himself. But when it came to inventing 
a story day by day ; when it came to deceiving Katrin, 
with her sharp eyes, at one end, and Helen’s unsuspicious 
soul at the other — then Lily could not bear the tangled 
web in which she had wound herself. She had to go on ; 
it was too late to tell the truth now, she had said to herself, 
day by day, her heart aching from those thanks which 
Helen showered upon her for her kind attendance upon 
the unexpected guest. If it bad not been for you, Lily, 
what could I have done ? ” the minister’s daughter had 
said, again and again ; and Lily’s heart had grown sick in 
the midst of her strained and painful happiness at Ronald’s 
side. 

Now this was over and another phase come. She had 
urged him to go, feeling the position untenable any longer 
in a way which his robust self-confidence had not felt ; 
but when suddenly he had taken the step she urged, Lily 
felt herself flung back upoii herself, the words taken out 
of her mouth, and the meaning from her mind. All her 
little fabric of life tumbled down about her. Those habits 
which are formed so quickly, which a few days suflice to 
bind upon the soul like iron, dropped from her, and she 
felt as if the framework by which she was sustained had 
broken down, and she could no longer hold herself erect. 
Her life seemed suddenly to have lost all its meaning, all 
its occupations. There was no sense in going on, no 
reason for its continuance merely to eat meals, to take 
walks, to go to bed and to get up again. She looked be- 
hind her, to the immediate past, with a pang, and before 
her, to the immediate future, with a blank sense of 
vacancy which was almost despair. When the ‘‘geeg” 
that carried him away was gone quite out of sight, Lily 
went slowly back to the drawing-room, and seated herself 
at the window from which she had first seen him appearing 
across the moor. It had been then all ablaze with the 
heather, which now had died away into rustling bunches 
of dead flowers, all dried like husks upon the stalks, gray 
and dreary, like the dull evening of a glowing day. Her 


139 


heart beat dull with the reverberation of all those convul- 
sions that had gone through it. And now they were all 
over, like the glow of the heather — and what was before 
her ? The winter creeping on, with its short days and 
long nights ; storm and rain, when even Rory would not 
face the keen wind ; solitude unbroken for weeks and 
months ; and beyond that what was there to look forward 
to ? Oh, if it had been but poverty — the little flat under 
the roofs in a tall Edinburgh house, and to work her 
fingers to the bone ! Poor Lily, who knew so little what 
working your fingers to the bone meant I who thought 
that would be blessedness beside one you loved, and in the 
world where you were born ! So, no doubt, it would have 
been ; but yet, in all probability, though she did not 
intend it so, it would have been Robina’s fingers, not hers, 
that were worked to the bone. 

I would not have the reader think that, translated into 
ordinary parlance, all this meant the vulgar fact that Lily 
was longing to be married, and would not accept the 
counsels of patience and wait, though she was only 
twenty-three, and had so many, many years before her. 
Had Ronald been an eager lover, ready to brave fortune 
for her sake, and consider that, for love, the world were 
well lost, she would no doubt have taken the other side of 
the question, and preached patience to him, and borne her 
own part of the burden with a smile. But it is very dif- 
ferent when it is the lover who is prudent, and when the 
girl, with an unsatisfied heart, has to wait and know that 
her happiness, her society, her life, are of less value to 
him than the fortune which he hopes, by patience, to secure 
along with her ; also that she can do nothing to emanci- 
pate herself, nothing to escape from whatever painful cir- 
cumstances may surround her, till he gives the word, 
which he shows no inclination to give, and which womanly 
pride and feeling forbid her even to suggest ; also, and 
above all, that in his hesitation, in his prudence and delay, 
he is falling short of the ideal which every lover should 
fulfil or lose his place and power. This was the worst of 


140 


all : not only that Ronald was acting so, but that it was 
so far, far different from the manner in which Ronald, 
had he been the Ronald she thought, would have acted. 
This gave the bitterness under which Lily’s heart sank. 
Again, she did not know what he meant to do, or if he 
meant to do any thing, or if she were to remain as she was, 
perhaps for long years, consuming her heart in loneliness 
and vacancy, diversified by moments of clandestine meet- 
ing and unlovely happiness, bought by deceit. She could 
not again yield to that, she said to herself, with passionate 
tears. Though her heart were to break, she would not 
heal it at the cost of lies. It might not have given Lily 
many compunctions, perhaps, to have deceived her uncle ; 
but to deceive Helen, to deceive kind Katrin and Dougal, 
to give false accounts of the simplest circumstances — oh ! 
no, no ; never again, never again ! She said this to her- 
self, with passionate tears falling like rain, as she sat at 
her lonely window^ on many a dreary day, straining her 
eyes across the moor, where the rain so often fell to double 
the effect of those tears. Let them give each other up 
mutually ; let them part and be done with it if he chose ; 
but to deceive every-bod}^ and meet secretly, or meet 
openly upon the falsest of pretences — oh ! no, no, Lily said 
to herself, never more ! 

But how these decisions melted when, in the heart 
of the winter, there began to dawn the promise of the 
New Year, it is easy to imagine, and I do not need to 
say. Lily, it must be remembered, had no one but Ronald 
to represent to her happiness and life. She had never had 
many people to love. Her father and mother had both 
died before she was old enough to know them. She had 
no aunt, though that is often an unsatisfactory relation, 
not even cousins whom she knew, which is strange to think 
of in Scotland — nobody to take her part or whom she 
could repose her heart upon but Beenie, her maid, to 
whom Lily’s concerns were her own sublimated, and who 
could only agree in and intensify Lily’s own natural im- 
pulses and thoughts. Ronald was all she had, the only 


141 


one who could help her, the sole deliverer possible, and 
opener to her of the gates of life. To be sure, she might 
have renounced him and so returned to her uncle, to be 
dragged about in a back seat of his chariot, if not at its 
wheels ; though, indeed, even this was problematical, for 
Sir Robert was a selfish old man, who was, on the whole, 
very glad to have got rid of the burden of a young woman 
to take about with him, and considered that she would do 
very well at the old Tower, and might be quite content 
with such a quiet and comfortable home, a good cook 
(which Katrin was), a pony to ride upon, and the run of 
the moor. He had half forgotten her existence by this 
time, as Lily divined, and was absent abroad ” in that 
vague and wide world of which stayers at home in Scot- 
land knew so much less then than every-body knows now. 
And as the time approached for Ronald’s return, Lily, in 
her longing for him, added to her longing for something, 
for some one, for society, emancipation, something that 
was life, began to forget all her old aches and troubles of 
mind ; the doubts flew away ; she remembered only that 
Ronald was coming, that he was coming, that the sun 
was about to shine again, that there was happiness in 
prospect, love and company and talk and sympathy, and 
all that is good in youth and life. This time she must 
manage so that the deceit of old would be necessary no 
longer. Helen should know that the two who had met so 
often in the Manse parlor had come to love each other. 
What so natural, what so fitting, seeing they had spent so 
much time together under her own wing and her own mild 
eyes ? And Katrin and Dougal should be permitted to 
see what Lily was very sure they had divined already, that 
the poor gentleman whom Lily had nursed so faithfully 
was more to her than any other gentleman in the world. 
He should come to Dalrugas to see her, and be with her 
openly as her lover in the sight of all men. If Sir Robert 
heard of it, why, then she must escape, she must fly; the 
pair must at last take it, as Ronald had said, into their 
own hands — and Lily did not feel that she would be very 


142 


sorry if this took place. At all events now every thing 
should be open and honest, clandestine no more. 

It seemed as if he had come to the same decision when 
he arrived on the night which was then called in Scotland, 
and is perhaps still to some extent, Hogmanay — why I do 
not know, nor I believe does any one — the last night of 
the year. He came in the early twilight, when the short, 
dark day was ending, and the long, cheerful evening about 
to begin. What a cheerful evening it was ! the fire so 
bright, the candles twinkling, the curtains drawn, and 
from the kitchen the sound of the children singing who 
had come out in a band all the way from the village to 
call upon Katrin : 

Get up, gudewife, and shake your feathers, 

And dinna think that we are beggars, 

For we are bairns, come out to play ; 

Get up and gie’s our Hogmanay.'' 

Lily was about to go down, flying down the spiral stairs, 
her heart beating loud with expectation, wondering breath- 
lessly when he would ceme, how he would come, who alone 
could bring the Hogmanay cheer to her, and in the mean- 
time ready, for pure excitement, and to keep herself still, 
to join the women in the kitchen, and fill the children’s 
wallets with cakes, cakes joar excellence^ the oatmeal cakes 
to wit, which are still what is meant in Scotland by that 
word, baked thin and crisp, and fresh from the girdle, 
making a pleasant smell ; and over and above these 
with shortbread, in fine, brown farls, the true New Year’s 
dainty, and great pieces of bun, the Scotch bun, which is 
something between a plum-pudding and the Pan Giallo of 
the Romans, a mass of fruit held together by flour and 
water. Great provision of these delights was in the 
kitchen, which was all redd up ” and shining for the fes- 
tival, with Katrin in her best cap, and Beenie in a silk 
gown and muslin apron, a resplendent figare. A band of 
guisards ” had accompanied the children, ready to enact 
some scene of the primitive drama of prehistoric tradition. 


143 


Lily was hastening down to join this party, in a white 
dress which she too had put on in honor of the occasion. 
The kitchen was very noisy, full of these visitors, and 
nobody but she heard the summons at the big hall-door. 
Lily hesitated for a moment, her heart giving a bound as 
loud as the knock — then opened it. And there he stood — 
the hero and the centre of all ! 

‘‘ And, eh, what a lucky thing to come this night that 
•Miss Lily may have her ploy too ! You will just stop and 
eat your bit dinner with her, Maister Lumsden!” Katrin 
cried. 

“ Will it be a ploy for Miss Lily ? I would like to be 
sure of that.” 

Eh, nae need to pit it in words,” said Katrin : look at 
her bonnie e’en ; and reason good, seeing that she has 
never spoken to one of her own kind, and least of all to a 
young gentleman, since the day ye gaed away.” 

“ I am staying at Tam the shepherd’s, on the other side 
of the moor,” said Ronald. 

“ Losh me ! at Tam the shepherd’s, for the shootin’ ? ” 
she asked in a tone of consternation. 

“ Well,” he said, with a laugh, you can judge, Katrin, 
for yourself.” 

Ay, ay,” she said, brightening all over, ‘‘ I judge for 
mysel’, sir, and I see it’s just the auld story. Tam the 
shepherd’s an awfu’ haverel, but his wife’s an honest 
woman, and clean,” she added, as far as she kens. But 
you shall have a good dinner with Miss Lily, I promise 
you, for once in a way.” 

Lily only half listened, but she heard all that was said. 
And her heart danced to see his open look, and the words 
in which there was no pretence of shooting, or any reason, 
save the evident one, for his presence there. The excuses 
were all over; there was to be no more deception. Honestly 
he came as her lover, endeavoring to throw no dust in the 
eyes of her humble guardians. If they had been noble 
guardians, holding her fate in their hands, Lily could not 
have been more happy. They were not to be deceived. 


144 


Openness and honesty were to be around her in the house 
which was her home. What was wanted but this to make 
lier the happiest girl that ever piled shortbread into a child’s 
wallet in honor of Hogmanay, and the 'New Year which 
was coming to-morrow ? A new year, a new life, a differ- 
ent world ! Katrin came up to her with half-affected 
horror and tender kindness, grasping her arm. “ Eh, Miss 
Lily,” she cried, you’ll just ruin the family, and we’ll no 
have a single farl of shortbread left for our ain use ; and 
the morn’s the l^ew Year ! Ye are giving every thing away. 
Na, na, we must mind oursel’s a wee. No more for you, my 
wee man. Miss Lily’s just ower good to you. Run up 
the stairs, my bonnie leddy, for Beenie is setting the table, 
and you’ll get your dinner, you and the gentleman, before 
the guisards begin.” 

The gentleman ! ” Lily felt her countenance flame, 
as she laughed and turned away. ‘‘How kind you are, 
Katrin,” she said, “ to provide me with company, too, me 
that never sees any body.” 

“Am I no kind,” cried Katrin in triumph, “ and him for 
coming just at the right moment ? I am awfu’ pleased 
that you have a pairty of your ain to bring in a good Kew 
Year.” 

How strange, how delightful it was to sit down opposite 
to him at the table, to eat Katrin’s excellent dinner, which, 
though it was almost impromptu, was so good — trout and 
game, the Highland luxuries, which were, indeed, almost 
daily bread on the edge of the moor, but not to Ronald, 
who amid all their happiness was man enough to like his 
dinner and praise it. “ This is how we shall sit at our own 
table, and laugh at all our little troubles when they are 
over,” he said. 

“ Oh, Ronald ! ” said Lily, with a little cloud in the midst 
of joy. They might be little troubles to him, but not to 
her, all lonely in the wilderness. 

“ At all events they will soon be over,” he said. His 
eyes were bright and his tones assured ; there was no 
longer any doubt in his look, which she examined in the 


145 


moments when he was not looking at her with an anxious 
criticism. “And tell me about the good folk at the Manse, 
and kind Miss Eelen and her assistant and successor. Is 
he to be her assistant, too, as well as her father’s ? I had 
a famous letter from the old gentleman about the wine I 
sent him. And, Lily, I think that with very little trouble 
I will get him to do all we want as soon as you can make 
up your mind to it. After all this time we must not have 
any more delay.” 

“ To do all we want ? ” she said, looking up at him with 
surprise. The dinner was over by this time, and they had 
left the table and were standing by the fire. 

“ Yes,” he said. “ What do we want but to belong to 
each other, Lily? You don’t need grand gowns or all 
the world at your wedding. Oh, yes, I should have liked 
to see my Lily with all her friends about her, and none so 
sweet as herself. But since we cannot do that, why should 
we mind it, when the old minister here can make every 
thing right in half an hour ? ” 

“ Ronald,” she said, with a gasp, “ you take away my 
breath ! ” 

“ Why,” he cried, “ is not this what has been in our 
minds for ever so long ? Have you not promised, however 

poor I was, in whatever straits ” 

“Yes, yes, there is no question of that.” 

“ And why, then, should it take away your breath ? 
My bonnie Lily, is it not an old bargain now? We have 
waited and waited, but nothing has come of waiting. 
And Providence has put us in a quiet place, with nothing 
but friends round, and a good old minister, a kind old 
fellow, who likes a good glass of wine and knows what 
he’s drinking ! ” He laughed at this as he drew her closer 
toward him. “Lily, with every thing in our favor, you 
will not put me off and make a hesitation now ? ” 

Oh, this was not quite the way, not the way she looked 
for ! Yet she drew her breath hard, that breath which 
fluttered in spite of herself, and put both her hands in his. 
No, after so long waiting why should she make a hesita- 
10 


146 


tion now ? And then they went down to tlie kitchen to- 
gether, arm in arm, Lily yielding to the delightful con- 
sciousness that there was no need for concealment, to see 
the guisards act their primitive drama, and to bring in 
the New Year. 

Oh, the New Year ! which was coming in amid that 
rustic mirth among those true, kind, humble friends to 
whom the young pair were as gods in the glory of their 
love and youth. Lily trembled in her joy : what bride 
does not ? What would it bring to them, that New Year ? 


CHAPTER XVII 

This New Year’s Eve remained, amid all the experiences 
of Lily, a thing apart. It became painful to her to think 
of it in after times, but in the present it was like a com- 
pletion and climax of life, still all in the visionary stage, 
yet so close on the verge of the real that she became her- 
self like an instrument, thrilling to every touch, answering 
every air that blew, every word that was said, in each and 
all of which there were meanings hidden of which none 
was aware but herself. There was the little dinner first, so 
carefully prepared by Katrin, so tenderly served by Beenie, 
the two young people sitting on either side of the table as 
if at their bridal banquet, while the sound of the festivities 
going on in the kitchen came up by times when the door was 
opened : a squeak of the fiddle, the sound of the stamping 
of the guisards as they performed their little archaic drama, 
adding a franker note of laughter to the keen supreme 
pleasure that reigned above. Beenie went and came, 
always bringing with her along with every new dish that 
little gust of laughter and voices from below, to which she 
kept open half an ear, while with the other she attended to 
what her little mistress said. 

You maun come down. Miss Lily, to do them a grace: 
they a’ say they’ll no steer till they’ve seen the young 


147 


ledclj ; and they’re decent lads just come out to play, as 
the bairns say in their sang, neither beggars nor yet stra- 
vaigers, but lads from the town, to please ye with their 
bit performance ; and I ken a’ their mothers ! ” Beenie 
cried with a little outburst of affectionate emotion. 

When Lily went down accordingly, followed closely by 
her lover, the little primitive drama was repeated, with 
more stamping and shouting than ever ; and then there 
was an endless reel, to the sound of the squeaking fiddle, 
in which Lily danced as long as she could hold out, and 
Beenie held out, as it seemed, forever, wearing out all the 
lads. 

“ Eh ! I was a grand dancer in my time,” she admitted, 
when she had breath enough, while the fiddle squeaked on 
and on. 

And then, as was right, Ronald said good-night as the 
rural band streamed away from the dooro The curious 
group of the guisards, some of them in white shirts out- 
side their garments, some in breastplates of tin, with an 
iron pot on their heads by way of helmet, set him home” 
with much respectful kindness. “ But I wuss ye were 
coming with us to the toun, for Tam the shepherd’s is no 
a howff for a gentleman,” they said. 

“ Any hole will do for me,” said Ronald in the exhilara- 
tion of the evening ; and all the liouse came out of doors to 
speed the parting guests. The moon shone mistily over 
the long stretch of the moor, throwing up a sinister gleam 
here and there from the deep cuttings, and flinging a veil 
as of gossamer over the great breadth of the country. The 
air was fresh, not over-cold, ^^saft,” as Dougal called it, 
with the suggestion of rain, and the sudden irruption of 
voices and steps into the supreme and brooding silence 
made the strangest effect in the middle of the night. Lily 
stood watching them as they streamed away, Ronald so 
distinct from them all as they streamed down under the 
shadow of the bank, to show again, chiefly by reason of 
their disguises, upon the road a little way down. Lily 
lingered until a speck of white in the distance was all that 


148 


was visible. She was wrapped in a plaid which Ronald 
had put round her, drawing the soft green and checkered 
folds closely around her face, and as warm physically as 
she was at heart. Now he was himself ; he had flung all 
prudences and fancies to the wind ; he had forgotten Sir 
Robert and his fortune, and every other common thing 
that could come between. Lily danced up the spiral stair- 
case with a heart that sang still more than her lips did as 
she ‘‘turned” the tune to which they had been dancing. 
No one can keep still to whom “ Tullochgoram” is sung or 
played. She danced up the stairs, keeping time faster and 
faster to the mad melody — the essence unadulterated of 
reckless fun and drollery. 

“ Eh, my bonnie leddy ! ” Beenie cried, who had gone 
before with the candles ; while Katrin stood looking after 
her, and Dougal locked and bolted the great hall-door. 
Katrin shook her head a little : she was much experienced. 
“Eh, if he be but worthy of her ! ” she sighed. 

“ It’s late, late at nicht, and the New Year well begun,” 
said Robina. “Eh, Miss Lily, you’ll never forget this 
New Year ? ” 

“ Why should I forget it ? ” said Lily. “ You had better 
wait till it is past before you say that. But maybe you 
are right, after all, for there never was a Hogmanay like 
this ; and to think that the morn will come, and that it 
will be no more like the other days than this has been ! 
Beenie, did you ever hear that folk might be as feared 
for joy as for trouble ? or is it only me that am so timor- 
some, and cannot tell which it is going to be ? ” 

“ ’Deed, and I’ve heard o’ that many’s the day. It’s 
just the common way, my bonnie dear. Many a bonnie 
lassie would fain flee to the ends of the earth the day be- 
fore her bridal that is just pleased enough when a’s said 
and done. You mustna lose heart.” 

“ I’m not losing heart,” said Lily. “ The day before 
my bridal ! Is that what it is? I will just be happy to- 
night and never think of the morn ; for when I begin to 
think, it takes so many things to be satisfied, and I 


149 


would like to be satisfied just for once, and take no 
thought.” 

Robina had a great deal to do in Lily’s room that night. 
She kept moving to and fro, softly opening and shutting- 
drawers and presses, laying away her mistress’s things 
with a care that was scarcely necessary, and meant only 
restlessness and excitement and an incapacity to keep still. 
Long before she had done moving about the half -lighted 
room Lily was fast asleep, her excitement, though presum- 
ably greater, not being enough to keep sleep from the eyes 
which were dazzled witli the sudden gleam of something 
so new and strange in her life, as well as tired with an 
unusual vigil. Lily slept as soundly as a child till the 
clear, somewhat shrill daylight, touched with frost, shone 
upon her late in the wintry morning and called her up 
much more effectually than the wavering call of Beenie, 
who was hanging over her in the morning, as she had been 
at night, the first to meet her eyes. 

‘‘Eh, Miss Lily, what a grand sleep ye have had!” 
Beenie cried. She had slept but little herself, her head 
full of the new situation and all the strange things that 
might be to come. The house in general had a sense of 
excitement breathing through it, not visible, indeed, in 
Dougal, who was, as usual, wrestling with the powny out- 
side, but very apparent in Katrin, who went about her 
morning work with an extremely serious face, as if all the 
cares of the world were on her shoulders. Robina and she 
had various stolen moments of communication through the 
day, indeed, which testified to a degree of confidence be- 
tween them, and a mutual preoccupation. 

“ I’m no to say a word to her ; but how am I to keep 
my tongue in my head when Dauvit himself says that 
when he was musin’ the fire burnt!” 

“ Losh,” cried Katrin, “ if it was naething but handin’ 
your tongue ! but what I’ve to think of is mair than that. 
Eh, I’m doing that for Miss Lily I would do for none of my 
kin, no, nor Dougal himself ; and I wish I was just clean out 
of it, for I’m no fond of secrets — they are uncanny things.” 


150 


Eh, woman ! ye wouldna betray them ? ” Beenie cried. 

‘‘ Betray them ? Am I a person to betray what’s 
trusted to me ? But I wish there were nae secrets in this 
world. It’s just aye cheating somebody. Ye caima be 
straichtforward, do what ye will, when ye’ve got other 
folks’ secrets to keep, let alone them that are your ain.” 

I’m no sae particular,” said Beenie, with a little toss 
of her head, and there will be no stress upon ye for long. 
It’s just the ae step.” 

‘‘I have my doubts,” said Katrin, shaking her head. 

Ye have your doubts ? And what doubts would ye have ? 
It will a’ be plain when ance it’s done. There are nae 
mair secrets after that ! It’s just as I said, the ae step. 
Eh me, I could have likit it far better in Sir Robert’s grand 
house in George Square, and a’ Edinburgh there, and the 
Principal himself to join their hands thegether, and my 
bonnie Miss Lily in the white satin, and the auld lady’s 
grand necklace about her bonnie white neck. But we 
canna have every thing our ain gate. The Manse parlor is 
just a’ that can be desired in the circumstances we’re noo 
in ; and when it’s done, it will just be done and naething 
more to say.” 

But Katrin still shook her head. She was a far-seeing 
woman. I’m no just sure we will be out of it sae easy as 
that,” she said. 

This talk was not completed at once, but came in on 
various occasions, a few words here and there, as oppor- 
tunity secured ; and the two women, though both were 
excited and disturbed, did no doubt enjoy the role of con- 
spirator, more or less, and felt that those secret consulta- 
tions added a zest to life. Beenie, whose lips were sealed 
in the presence of her mistress, and Katrin, who had to 
maintain an aspect of absolute calm in the sight of Dougal, 
could not but feel a consciousness of superiority^ which 
consoled them for much that was uncomfortable. But, 
indeed, it was exasperatingly easy to deceive Dougal. He 
suspected nothing ; secrets or mysteries had never come 
his way. Life meant to him his daily work, his daily 


151 


parritch, the comfort of a crack now and then with his 
friends, a glass of toddy on an occasion, and the prevailing 
consciousness of being well done for at all times, with a 
clean hearthstone, and the parritch and the broth both well 
boiled and appetizing, more than fell to the lot of ordinary 
men. If he had known even that Katrin was keeping a 
secret from him, it is doubtful whether he would have been 
at all moved. He would have thought it some whigma- 
leerie of the wife’s, and would have remained perfectly 
easy in his mind, in the conviction that she would tell him 
if it was any thing he had to do with, and if not, wha was 
minding ? Nothing that she did or said roused his curi- 
osity to any great degree. There had need to be some- 
thing more serious than Dougal to account for the little 
contraction over Katrin’s eyes. 

This was, perhaps, more visible, however, after the con- 
versation she had with Mr. Lumsden on the afternoon of 
New Year’s Day. I cannot tell what he said to her, but 
there was something in it additional to what he had said 
on the evening before, when he had told her and Beenie 
what their parts were to be in the little drama for which 
he had not yet fully prepared the chief actor of all. Lily 
waited for him at the window with a heart that beat high 
in her breast on that frosty morning, when all the stretches 
of the moor were crisp and white, and every little rowan- 
tree and bush of withered heather shone like something of 
frosted silver across the gray surface, tinged with a lower 
tone of whiteness. Lily saw him almost before he had 
come within the range of mortal vision, so far off that the 
road itself could not be seen, and only a faint speck that 
moved was distinguishable in the chill and frozen 
silence. The speck moved on, disappeared, came out 
again till it grew into absolute sight and knowledge, near 
enough to be recognized from the window, and hastily met 
at the door with a sweep of flying feet and hands out- 
stretched. “ My bonnie Lily ! the only flower that’s not 
frosted ! ” he said. The change that had taken place 
between them was made plain by this : that he came quite 


152 


openly to the door, and tliat Lily flew to meet liim. There 
was no longer any occasion for the supposed accident of 
meetings on the moor. How this change came about Lily 
did not stop to enquire. It was, and that was enough ; 
and she was too happy in it ever to wonder what could 
have been said or done underneath to make the lover’s 
appearance now a thing expected, and which it was un- 
necessary to attempt to conceal. 

“ It will perhaps be for to-morrow and perhaps for the 
day after ; I am not certain yet,” Ronald said. 

What will perhaps be for to-morrow ? ” Lily cried, 
with a sudden flush on her cheek. 

‘‘We are not going to make any fuss about it, Lily. 
You promised me you would not desire that. It’s very 
easy to be married in our country. If we were to call 
Dougal up and Katrin, and say we were man and wife, 
we would be married just as fast as by all the ministers in 
the world.” 

“ Ronald ! ” cried Lily, growing pale. 

“ I am not suggesting such a thing. Do you think that 
I would put a scorn on my bonnie Lily with a marriage 
like that? Hot I! What I cannot bear is that you 
should be stinted of one thing you would like — though, 
for my part, the less the better, I say, and the most agi*ee- 
able to me. But no ; I am not that kind of man. I like 
the sanction of the Kirk. I like every thing done decently 
and in order. That is why I say to-morrow or the next 
day, for I have not yet seen Mr. Blythe.” 

“ And is it to be so soon as that ? ” said Lily with awe. 

“ My darling, what object have we in waiting ? The 
vacation is short enough anyway. We must not lose 
a day. You promised to be ready at a moment’s warning. 
Well, I’m giving you a day’s warning. If every thing had 
been right, it would have been you to flx the time, and 
all your fancies consulted. But we’re past that, Lily. You 
know you put yourself into my hands to have it done as 
soon as was possible.” 

“ Did I ? ” said Lily, confused ; and then she added : 


153 


“ I know. I am not one to make a trouble. It is best to 
be done when we can — and as soon as we can — and end 
this dreary life.” 

“That is what I knew you would say. No certainty, no 
ground to stand on, and not knowing what might happen 
at any moment. No, Lily, it is no time for scruples 
now.” 

“ Still,” said Lily, “ I would have liked to have heard all 
your plans and what we are to do. It is fine planning. It 
is aye a pleasure, even when it comes to nothing. And 
now, when it must come to something ” 

“ That’s the difference, I suppose, between man and 
woman,” said Ronald, with a laugh. “ I have no thought 
of any thing but one thing. I care nothing about plans. 
You, that are all made up of imagination, you shoot past 
and begin again. But me, I think only of getting my 
Lily, of having her for my own. I have neither plots nor 
plans in my head.” 

“ It is a good thing, then, that women think of them, for 
we can’t do without them,” Lily said. But she was soothed 
and pleased that her bridegroom should have no thought 
but for herself. Perhaps this was what was most fit for the 
man. The woman had the outset to think of, the new 
house to live in, and every thing else that was involved. 
The reverse thought gives pleasure in other circumstances. 
There is no consistency in the reasonings of this period 
'of life. 

“ Let us go out now,” said Ronald ; “ the frost is hard, 
and it’s fine dry walking ; we’ll get a turn round the moor, 
and then I will be off to the ‘ toun ’ to see the minister, 
and to-night I’ll come back and tell you all about it. 
Wrap up well, for it’s cold, but so bright that it does the 
heart good. But it is the day itself, and because it is the 
day, that does the heart most good,” he said, once more 
wrapping Lily up, close round her pretty throat, with the 
soft, voluminous folds of the plaid. The two faces so close 
together, the light in her eyes, the contagious happiness in 
his face, took every shadow from Lily’s heart. There had 


154 


been no shadows, only a faint sort of floating gossamer, 
which had no meaning, and now it melted all away. 

The ramble round the moor filled all the bright noon of 
the wintry day. It was not possible to wander among 
the ling bushes, or by the soft, meandering lines of turf. 
All was crisp with the curling whiteness of the frost, 
except here and there where a prominent point had been 
melted and darkened by the sun. They went along the 
road, which crackled under their feet, with small ice 
crystals in every fissure. The mountains stood blue in 
a faint haze that seemed to breathe into the still air, and 
the moor stretched white, like a piece of crisp embroidery, 
under the shining of the light. How wintry the air was, 
and how exhilarating, tightening the nerves and stimulat- 
ing every force ! Toward the north the sky was heavy 
and spoke of snow, but there were soft breaks of blue 
and lines of yellow light in the brighter quarter. They 
walked now quickly as they faced the wind, now slowly 
as they turned their backs upon it, and, wrapped in their 
soft plaids, felt the soft glow and warmth mount to their 
youthful cheeks. I doubt if any summer ramble, in the 
sweetest air and among the flowers, was more full of 
pleasure. They talked to each other incessantly, but 
perhaps not very much that would bear repeating ; yet 
there was a little veiled conflict certainly going on all the 
time, scarcely conscious, hidden in innocent questions and 
suggestions, in innocent seeming evasions. Lily wanted 
to ask so much, but half feared to put a direct question 
lest it should be an offence, while he wanted to keep every 
question at arm’s-length, but did not dare to do so lest it 
should excite suspicion. There was an occasional flash of 
the rapiers, soon covered up in the softest tones and 
touches, but still they kept their distinct parts : she 
anxious to see a little beyond, he eager to keep her within 
the limits of the day. He parried all her thrusts with 
this pretence : that his thoughts could not stray beyond 
to-morrow. ‘‘Sufficient unto the day is the happiness 
thereof,” he said. 


155 


Then they went in and had their mid-day meal together, 
once more attended by Beenie, with a world of meaning in 
every glance. They are jnst twa bonnie doos crooning 
on a branch,” she said to Katrin, as she came down stairs 
for another dish. “Doos!” cried Katrin; “they have a 
very good will to their meat, that’s a’ that I can say.” 
“They are like twa bonnie squirrels in a wood,” cried 
Beenie, at her next dive into the kitchen, “ givin’ aye a 
look the one to the ither.” “ Squirrels, my certy ! but I 
wouldna like to gether the nits for them a’ the year 
through,” said Katrin. But when Beenie came back for 
the pudding, and declared that “they were like twa bonnie 
fishes side by side in the burn, the ane mail* silvery and 
golden than the other,” Katrin’s amazement and ridicule, 
and the excitement underneath, found vent in a shriek 
which brought Dougal hurrying in from the barn. “Losh, 
woman ! are ye burnt in the fire, or have ye spilt the boil- 
ing pot upon ye, or what have ye done?” “I’ll gie you 
the boiling pot yourself, and a dishclout to pin to your 
tail, and that will learn ye to ask fule questions ! ” Katrin 
said. 


CHAPTER XVIII 

Ronald walked into Kinloch-Rugas after the plentiful 
lunch upon which Katrin had made so many remarks. His 
head was buzzing and his bosom thrilling with the excite- 
ment natural at that period of existence. He loved Lily 
— as well as he was capable of loving — with all the 
mingled sentiment and passion, the emotions high and 
low, the very human and half divine, which are involved in 
that condition of mind. He was a healthy, vigorous, and 
in no way vicious young man. If he had not the highest 
ideal, he had not at all the lowered standard of a man 
whose mind has been debased by evil communications. 
He was, in his way, a true lover, at the climax of life 
which is attained by a bridegroom. His thoughts were 


156 




set to a kind of rhythmic measure of ‘‘ Lily, Lily,” as he 
walked swiftly and strongly down the long road toward 
the village. If his mind had been laid bare by a touch of 
the angel’s spear, it would not, I fear, have satisfied Lily, 
nor any one who loved her, but it sufficiently satisfied 
himself. He did not want to look beyond the next step, 
which, he had convinced himself, was the right step to 
take ; what was to follow was, he tried to assure himself, 
in the providence of God ; or, if that was too serious (but 
Ronald was a serious man, willingly conceding to God the 
right to influence human affairs), it was open to all the 
developments, chances even, if you like to say so, of 
natural events. Who could say what would happen on 
the morrow ? In the meantime a reasonable man’s concern 
was with the events of the day. And though he was not 
a highly strung person by nature, he was to-day all lyri- 
cal, and thrilling with the emotions of a bridegroom. He 
was not unworthy of the position. His very foot acknowl- 
edged that thrill, and struck the ground in measure, as if 
the iron strings of frost had been those of a harp. The 
passer-by, plodding along with head down and nose half 
sheltered from the cutting wind, took that member half out 
of the folds of his plaid to see what it was that was so 
bye-ordinary in the man he met. He did not sound like a 
common man going into the town on common business, 
nor look like it when the spectator turned to breathe the 
softer way of the wind for a moment and look after the 
stranger. Neither did Ronald feel like any one else on 
that wintry afternoon. He was a bridegroom, and the 
thrill of it was in all his veins. 

It was nearly dark when he came in sight of the lights, 
chiefly twinkling lights in w indows, for there was no gas 
as yet to illuminate every little place as we have it now. 
In the Manse, with its larger windows, it was still light 
enough, and the soft yellow and pink of the frosty evening 
sky lent color, as well as light, to the calm of the parlor, 
facing toward the west, where Mr. Blythe sat alone. It 
was the minister’s musing time. Sometimes he had a 


157 


doze ; sometimes he sat by the fire, but with his chair 
turned to the sunset, and indulged in his own thoughts. 
These were confessedly, in many cases, his old stories, over 
which he would go from time to time, with a choke of a 
laugh in the stillness over this and that : perhaps there 
were moments in which his musings were more solemn, 
but of these history bears no record. The Manse parlor 
had no feature of beauty. It was a very humdrum room ; 
but to the minister it was the abode of comfort and peace. 
He wanted nothing more than was to be found within its 
four walls ; life was quite bounded to him by these walls, 
and I think he had no wish for any future that went beyond 
them : his Scotsman^ which lasted him from one day to 
another, till the next (bi-weekly) number came in ; his 
books, chiefly volumes of old history or Reminiscences, 
sometimes a Scots (occasionally printed Scott’s) novel — 
but that was a rare treat, and not to be calculated upon ; 
about of story-telling now and then with another clerical 
brother or old elder whose memory stretched back to those 
cheerful, jovial, legendary days, where all the stories come 
from : these filled up existence happily enough for the old 
minister. His work was over, and I fear that perhaps he 
had never put very much of his heart into that, and he had 
his daughter to serve him “ hand and foot,” as the maids 
said. He did not need even to take the trouble of finding 
his spectacles (which, like most other people, he was always 
losing) for himself. ‘‘ Eelen, where’s my specs ? ” he said, 
without moving. Such was this old Scotch presbyter and 
sybarite, and though a paradise of black hair-cloth and 
mahogany does not much commend itself to us nowa- 
days, I think Mr. Blythe would gladly have compounded 
for the deprivation of pearly gates and golden streets 
could he have secured the permanence of this. 

He was very glad to see Ronald, notwithstanding that 
he had become very anxious to get rid of him during his 
stay at the Manse. A visitor of any kind was a godsend 
in the middle of winter, and at this time of the year, and 
especially a visitor from Edinburgh, with news to tell, and 


158 


•'perhaps a fresh story or two of the humors of the courts 
and the jokes of the judges, things that did not get in even 
to The Scotsman, ‘‘ And what’s a’ your news, Mr. Lums- 
den ? ” he said eagerly. Ronald, who had had many 
opportunities of understanding the old minister, had come 
provided with a scrap or two piquant enough to please 
him, and what with the jokes, and what with the politics, 
made a very good impression in the first half-hour of his 
visit. Then came the turn of more personal things. 

‘‘ Yon was a fine glass of wine, Mr. Lumsden,” said the 
minister, with a slight smack of his lips. 

‘‘ I am very glad you liked it, sir ; it was chosen by one 
of my friends who is learned in such matters. I would 
not trust it to a poor judge like myself.” 

‘‘ Better for you, Mr. Lumsden, better for you at your 
age not to be too good a judge. Look not upon the wine 
when it is red, says the prophet, which is just when it’s 
best, many persons think. I am strongly of his opinion 
when your blood’s hot in your veins, like the most of you 
young lads ; but when a man begins to go down the hill, 
and when he’s well exercised in moderation, and to use 
without abusing, then a grand jorum of wine like yon 
makes glad the heart, as is to be found in one rather mys- 
terious scripture, of God and man.” 

“ I hoped it would give you a charitable thought of one 
that was rather a somer^ as I remember you said, upon 
your hospitality.” 

‘‘ That was never meant, that was never meant,” said 
the minister, waving his large flabby hands. Ronald had 
risen from his seat and w’^as now standing by the fire, lean- 
ing his arm on the mantel-piece. The slow twilight w^as 
waning, and though the daffodil sky still shone in the 
window, the fire had begun to tell, especially in the shadow 
of the half -lit room. 

You see, sir,” said Ronald, with a leap of his heart 
into his throat, and of the voice which accompanied it, 
coming forth with sudden energy, there wag more in 
that than met the eye.” 


159 


‘‘ Ay, do ye say so ? ” said Mr. Blythe, also with a 
quickened throb of curiosity in his voice. 

“Miss Ramsay and I— had met in Edinburgh,” said 
Ronald, clearing his throat, “ we had seen — a great deal 
of each other. We had, in short ” 

“ 1 always said it, I always said it! ” said the minister. 
“ I told Eelen the very first night. I’ve seen much in 
my day. ‘These two are troth-plighted,’ I said to my 
daughter, before ye had been in my house a single night.” 

“ I thought it was vain to attempt deceiving your clever 
eyes,” said Ronald ; “ I told Lily so; but ladies, you know, 
are never so sure — they think they can conceal things.” 

“ Thrust their heads into the sand like the ostriches, 
silly things, and think nobody can see them ! ” said the 
minister. “ I knoAV them well ; that’s just what they all 
do.” 

“ Well, so it was, at least,” said Ronald. “ You will 
not, perhaps, wonder now that I stayed as long as I could, 
outstaying my welcome, I fear, and wearing out even your 
hospitality ; but it was a question of seeing Lily, without 
exciting any suspicion, in a natural, easy way.” 

“ I will not say much about that last, for it was more 
than suspicion on my part.” 

“ Ah, but every-body is not like you ; neither your 
experience nor your powers of observation are common,” 
said Ronald. He paused a moment, to let this compliment 
sink in, and then resumed. “ Mr. Blythe, I will admit to 
you that Sir Robert is not content, and that, in short, 
Lily was banished here to take her away from me.” 

“I cannot think it a great banishment to be sent to 
Dalrugas, which is a fine house in its way, though maybe 
old-fashioned, and servants to be at her call night and 
day,” said the minister, “ but you may easily see it from 
another point of view. Proceed, proceed,” he added, 
with another wave of his hand. 

“ Well, sir, I can but repeat : Sir Robert does not think 
me rich enough for his niece. She is his only kin ; he 
would like her to marry a rich man ; he would sacrifice her. 


160 


my bonnie Lily, to an old man with a yellow face and bags 
of money.” 

“ Well, well, that’s no so unnatural as you think. I 
would like my Eelen to have a warm down-sitting if I 
could help her to it, to go no further than myself.” 

“ I understand that, sir ; my Lily is worthy of a prince, 
if there could be a 23rince that loved her as well as I do. 
But it is me she has chosen and nobody else, and she is 
not one to change if she were shut up in Dalrugas Tower 
all her life.” 

‘‘Eh, I would not lippen to that,” said the minister ; 
“ she is but a young thing. Keep you out of the gate, 
and let her neither hear from you or see you, and her bit 
heart, at that age, will come round.” 

“ Thank you for the warning, sir,” said Ronald, with a 
laugh that was forced and uncomfortable ; “ that’s what 
Sir Robert thought, I suppose. But you may believe 
there is no pleasure to me in thinking so. And besides, it 
would never happen with Lily, for Lily is. true as steel.” 
He paused for a moment, with a little access of feeling. 
It remained to be seen whether he was true as steel him- 
self, and perhaps he was not quite assured on that point ; 
yet he was capable, so far, of understanding the matter 
that he was sure of it in Lily, and the conviction expanded 
his breast with pride and pleasure. He paused with 
natural sentiment, and partl}^ with the quickening of his 
breath, to take the full good of that sensation ; and then 
he resumed : 

“ I am not rich, you will easily understand ; we are a lot 
of sons at home, and my share will not be great. But I 
have a good profession, and in a few years, so far as I can 
see, I may be doing with the best. As far as family is 
concerned, there can be no question between any Ramsay 
and my name.” 

The minister waved his hand soothingly over this con- 
tention. It was not to be gainsaid, nor was any com- 
parison of races to be attempted. He said : “ In that case, 
my young friend, if it’s but a few years to wait and you 


161 


will be doing so well, and both young, with plenty of time 
before ye, so far as I can see ye can well alford to wait.” 

“ I might afford to wait, that am kept to my work, and 
little enough time to think, but Lily, Mr. Blythe. Here is 
Lily alone in the wilderness, as she says. I’m forbidden 
to see her, forbidden to write to her.” 

‘‘ Restrictions which ye have broken in both cases.” 

‘‘ Yes,” cried Ronald. How could we let ourselves be 
separated, how could I leave her to languish alone ? I 
tried as long as I could. I did not write to her. I did 
not come near her, but flesh and blood could not bear it. 
And then when I saw how glad she was to see me, and 

how her bonnie countenance changed ” Here he nearly 

broke down, his voice trembled, so genuine and true was 
his feeling. “ We cannot do it,” he said faintly, “and 
that’s all that’s to be said. Mr. Blythe, you are the 
minister, you have the power in your hands ” 

“ Eh, man ! but I’m only the auld minister nowadays,” 
cried the old gentleman, with a sudden outburst of 
natural bitterness to which he very seldom gave vent. 
He was delighted to have nothing to do, but did not love 
his supplanter any more on that account. “ Ye must ask 
nothing from me ; go your ways to my assistant and 
successor — he is your man.” 

“ I will go to nobody but you! ” cried Ronald, with all 
the fervor of a temptation resisted. “ Mr. Blythe, will 
you marry Lily to me ? ” 

Mr. Blythe made a long pause. “If ye are rightly cried 
in the kirk, I have no choice but to marry ye,” he said. 

“ But I want it done at once, and very private, without 
any crying in the kirk.” 

“ That would be very irregular, Mr. Lumsden.” 

“ I know it would, but not so irregular as calling up 
Beenie and Dougal and Katrin, and saying before them : 
‘ This is my wife.’ ” 

“ No,” said the minister, “ not just so bad as that, but 
very irregular. Do ye know, young man, I would be sub- 
ject to censure by the Presbytery, and I canna tell what 

11 


162 


pains and penalties ? And why should I do such a thing, 
to save you a month or two, or a year or two’s waiting, 
that is nothing, nothing at your age ? ” 

“It is a great deal when people are in our circum- 
stances,” cried Ronald. “ Lily so lonely, not a creature 
near her, no pleasure in her life, no certainty about any 
thing : for Sir Robert might hear I had been seen about, 
and might just sweep her away, abroad, to the ends of the 
earth. You say she would forget, but she does not want 
to forget, nor do I, you may be sure, whereas, if you will 
just do this for us, you will make us both sure of each 
other forever, and I can never be taken from her, nor she 
from me.” 

“ Young man,” said the minister impressively, “ I got 
my kirk from the Ramsays ; they’re patrons o’ this parish, 
and I was a young man with little influence. I was tutor 
to Mr. James, but I had little chance of any thing grander 
than a parish school, where I might have just flourished 
as a stickit minister all my days, and it was the Ramsays 
that made me a placed minister, and set me above them 
a’ : that was the old laird before Sir Robert’s days. But 
Sir Robert has been very ceevil the times he has been here. 
He has asked me whiles to my dinner, and other whiles he 
has sent me just as many grouse and paitricks as I could 
set my face to. Would it be a just return, think ye, to 
marry away his bonnie niece to a landless lad as ye confess 
ye are, with nothing but fees at the best, and not too many 
of them coming in ? ” 

“ Mr. Blythe,” cried Ronald, “if it was Mr. James you 
were tutor to, it is to Mr. James you owe all this, and Mr. 
James, had he been living, would never have gone against 
the happiness of his only child ! ” 

“Eh! but who can tell that?” cried the minister. 
“ Little was he thinking of that or of any kind of child. 
He was a young fellow, maybe, as heedless, maybe more 
than ye are yourself. Na, there was no thought neither 
of wife nor bairn in his head.” 

“ But,” cried Ronald, “ you must feel you have a double 


163 


duty to one that is his child, and his only one, little as he 
knew of it at the time.” 

‘‘ A double duty: and what is that ? ” said the minister, 
shaking his head. ‘‘ The duty to keep her from any rash 
step, puir young unfriended thing, or to let her work out 
her silly will, which, maybe, in a year’s time she would 
rather have put her hand in the fire than have done ? ” 

“You give a bonnie character of me,” Ronald said, 
with a harsh laugh. 

“ I am giving no character of you. I am thinking noth- 
ing of you. I am thinking of the bit lassie. It is her I 
am bound to protect, both for her father’s sake and her 
own. Most marriages that are made in haste are, as the 
proverb says, repented of at leisure. She might be heart- 
grieved at me that helped her to her will to-day when she 
knows more of life and what it means. Na, na, my young 
friend, take you your time and wait. Waiting is aye a 
salutary process. It brings out many a hidden virtue, it 
consolidates the character, and if you are diligent in your 
business it brings ye your reward, which ye enjoy more 
than if you had snatched it before your time.” 

“ I tell you, minister,” cried Ronald, “ that we cannot 
wait, that it’s a matter of life and death to us, both to 
Lily and me ! 

“ What is that you are saying ? I am hoping there is 
no meaning in it, but only words,” the old man said 
sharply in an altered tone. 

The room had grown almost quite dark, the daffodil 
color had all faded away, and the heavy curtain of the 
coming snow was stretching over the last faint streak of 
light. The fire was smouldering and added little to the 
room, which lay in a ruddy dark, warmed rather than 
lighted up. Ronald stood with his elbow on the mantel- 
piece close to the old minister, whose face had been sud- 
denly raised toward him with an expression of keen com- 
mand and alarm. And who can tell what devil had stolen 
in with the dark to put words of shame into the mouth of 
the young man who had come down the frosty moorland 


164 


road like a song of joy and youth ? It was rapid as a 
dart. He stooped down and said something in the old 
minister’s ear. 

The shameful lie ! the shameful, shameful lie ! The 
temptation, the fall, was so instantaneous that Ronald 
himself was scarcely conscious of it, or of what he had 
done in his haste. The old gentleman uttered into the 
darkness a sort of moan. And then he spoke briefly and 
sharply, with a keen tone of scorn in his words which 
stung his companion even through the confusion of the 
time. 

‘‘ If that’s so, ye’re a disgraceful blackguard ! but it’s 
not my part to speak. Be here at this house the morn, 
with her and your witnesses ; I insist upon the witnesses, 
two of them, to sign the lines. I will send Eelen out of 
the way. Come before it’s dark, as ye came to-day; I am 
always alone at this hour. That’s enough, man, I hope. 
What are you wanting more ? ” 

“ I want only to say that you judge me very hastily, 
Mr. Blythe.” 

“ It’s a case in which least said is soonest mended,” said 
the minister. ‘‘ To-morrow, just before the darkening, 
and, thank the Lord, there need not be another word said 
between you and me ! ” 


CHAPTER XIX 

Ronald started back on his way to Dalrugas in the 
beginning of the wintry night in a condition very different 
from that in which he came. His head was dazed and 
swimming ; something had happened to him ; he had 
taken a step such as he had never contemplated taking, a 
step which, did Lily ever know or suspect it, would, he 
knew, open such a gulf between them as nothing could ever 
bridge over. He was in a hundred minds to turn back, to 
confess his sin before he had passed the last house in the 


165 


village. We do not call that a temptation when we are 
impelled to do right, but it is the same thing, only the 
temptations to do right are somehow less potent than those 
to do wrong. He was torn by a strong impulse to go back 
and remedy what he had done : the temptation to commit 
that fault had been momentary, but overwhelming ; the 
temptation to go back and confess was continuous, but 
evidently feeble, for he went straight on through all its 
tuggings, and did not walk more slowly. But yet it would 
have done him much good and probably no harm had he 
done so : the minister would have forgiven a fault so soon 
repented of ; he would probably, in the natural feeling 
toward a penitent sinner, have acceded to his wishes all the 
same. These thoughts went through Ronald’s head with- 
out ever stopping his steady and quick walk into the dark. 
He repented, if that had been enough, in sackcloth and 
ashes; he was so deeply ashamed of what he had done that 
he felt his countenance flame in the darkness where nobody 
could by any possibility see. But he did not turn back. 
And presently by repetition the impulse weakened a little, 
his brain cleared, and the world became steady once again. 
The thing was done ; it could not be undone. There was 
no possibility that Lily should ever hear of it ; nobody 
would ever know of it but old Blythe and himself, and old 
Blythe would die. It would be a recollection which, in 
the depth of the night, in moments of solitude, or when 
awakened by a sudden touch of the past, would go on sting- 
ing him like a serpent all the days of his life, but it would 
be otherwise innocuous. Lily would never hear of it, that 
was the great thing ; there was no chance that she could 
ever hear. The old minister’s lips were sealed. It would 
be contrary to every rule of honor if he w^ere to betray 
what had been said to him. Ronald said to himself that 
he must accept the stinging of that recollection, which he 
would never get rid of all his life, as his punishment ; but 
no one else would suffer, Lily least of all. 

These feelings were hot and strong in his mind as he set 
out ; but a walk of four miles against a cold wind, and 


166 


with the snow threatening to come down every moment, is 
a very good thing for dispersing troublous thoughts : they 
gradually blew away as he went on, and the bridegroom’s 
state of triumph and rapture came back, dimly at first, and 
as if he dared not indulge it, but gaining strength every 
moment, until, before he reached Dalrugas, from the first 
moment when he saw his love’s light in her window shin- 
ing far over the moor, it came back in full force, driving 
every thing else away. He saw, first, the little star of 
light hanging midway between earth and sky, and then 
the shape of the window, and then Lily’s figure or shadow 
coming from time to time to look out ; and no lover’s heart 
could have risen higher or beat more warmly. He entirely 
forgot how he had wronged her in the glory of having her, 
of knowing her to be there waiting for him, and that she 
would be his wife to-morrow. She came to the top of the 
stairs to meet him, while he rushed up three steps at a 
time, rubbing against the narrow spiral of the stair with 
such passion and force of feeling as the best man in the 
world could not have surpassed. One does not require, it 
is evident, to be the best man in the world, or even a true 
man at all, to love truly and fervently, and with all the 
force of one’s being. One might say that it was selfish- 
ness on Ronaldos part to appropriate at any cost the girl he 
loved ; but the fact remained, a fact far deeper than any 
explanation, that he did love her as deeply, as warmly, as 
sincerely as any man could. Their meeting was a moment 
of joy to both, like a poem, like a song; their hearts beat 
as high as if it had been a first meeting after years of 
absence, and yet it would have been less complete had they 
been parted for more than the two or three hours which 
was its real period. I need not go any further into this 
record. It did not matter what they said ; words are of 
little account at such moments. It is only to note that a 
man who had just told a disgraceful lie, and put upon his 
bride a stigma of the most false and cruel kind, and whose 
mind was already shaping thoughts which were destined 
to work her woe, was at the moment when he met her with 


167 


the news that their marriage was to take place next day 
as much, as tenderly in love with her as heart could desire. 
The problem is one which I have no power to explain. 

Next day being still one of the daft days, bright with 
the reflection of the New Year, and the day of the weekly 
market in Kinloch-Rugas, Katrin announced early her 
intention of going in to the toun in the course of the day, 
an expedition which Beenie, with much modesty and 
reference to Miss Lily, proposed to share. “ I havena 
been in the toun, no to say in the toun, ither than at the 
kirk, which is a different thing, since I came to Dalrugas. 
I’ll maybe get ye a fairing, laddie, for the sake of the New 
Year ” 

‘‘ If he gangs very canny with the powny, and tak’s care 
of a’ our bundles,” Katrin said. 

‘‘ And me, I’m to be left my lane, to keep the hoose,” 
said Dougal, “ like Joan Tamson’s man.” 

“ Weel,” said Katrin, ‘‘ ye’re in there mony a day and 
me at hame ; it would be a funny thing if I couldna gang 
to the market once at the New Year.” 

I’m saying nothing against you and your market. 
And here’s Miss Lily away to her tea at the Manse, and 
maun have Rory no less to drive her in the geeg with that 
lad from Edinburgh. I wish there was less of that lad 
from Edinburgh ; he’s nae ways agreeable to me.” 

‘‘ Losh, man! it’s no you he’s running after,” cried 
Katrin, “ nor me neither. But he’s a fine lad for all 
that.” 

“ Fine or foul, I would like to see the back of him,” 
said Dougal ; and the women in their guilty consciences 
trembled. They had both been brought to Ronald’s 
side. Both of them had a soft heart for true love, and 
the fact of stealing a march upon Sir Robert was 
as pleasant to Katrin as if she had been ten times his 
housekeeper. The house was full of subdued excitement, 
hidden words exchanged between the women on the stairs 
and in dark corners, as if they were conspirators or lovers. 
“ Has he any suspicion, do ye think ? ” Beenie whisj)ered 


168 


in Katrin’s ear. Him ! ” cried Katriri. If it was put 
under his nose in black and white, he would bring it to me 
to spell it out till him.” Eh, but sometimes these simple 
folks discern a thing when others that are wiser see 
nothing.” ‘‘ Wha said my man was simple? There’s 
no a simple bit about him ; but he knows I’m a woman to 
be trusted, and he’ll no gang a step without Katrin! ” It 
was not, perhaps, a moment when an anxious enquirer could 
feel this trust justified. Eh, Katrin,” cried Robina, 
“ tell me just what’s the worst that could happen to them 
if it was found out.” “ The worst is just that he would 
have to take his bride away, Beenie.” ‘‘ Eh ! she would 
no be minding ! That’s just what she wants most.” 
‘‘And lose her uncle’s siller,” Katrin added, with a deeper 
gravity of tone. “ That wouldna trouble her either,” 
said Beenie, shaking her head as over a weakness of her 
mistress which she could not deny. “ But I am feared, 
feared,” said Katrin solemnly, with that repetition which 
makes an utterance emphatic, “ that it would be a sore 
trouble to him.” “ Any way , it’s a’ settled now, and we’ll 
have to stick to them,” said Beenie doubtfully. “ Oh, 
I’ll stick to them as long as I can stand,” Katrin said 
with vigor ; and this was the last word. 

It was clear enough that something was going to take 
place at the tower of Dalrugas on that Thursday ; but 
this was sufficiently accounted for by the fact that Katrin 
was going to the market, a thing that did not happen 
above twice or thrice a year. There were a great many 
arrangements to make, and the black powny had begun 
his toilet, and the little cart had been scrubbed and brushed 
before the sun was well up in the sky to receive the two 
substantial forms, which, on their side, were arrayed in 
their best gowns before the early dinner to which they sat 
down, each with her heart in her mouth in all the excite- 
ment of the ripe conspiracy. Only an hour or two now, 
and the signal would be given, the cord would be pulled, 
and the great scene would open upon them. “ Will you 
and me ever forget this day, Katrin ? ” Beenie gasped, 


169 


unable to control herself. Katrin gave her a push with 
her shoulder, and took her own place soberly at the board 
to dispense the dinner as usual. ‘‘ There’s an awfu’ fine 
piece of beef in the pot,” she said, ‘‘ ower good for the 
like of us ; but it ’ll mind ye, Dougal, of the day ye 
keepit the house, and 1 gaed to the toun.” 

“ It’s no the first day I’ve keepit the house, and you 
been the one to gang to the toun.” 

“ No, maybe, ye’ve done it four times since you and 
me were marriet. If ye ever got better broth than thae 
broth, it’s no me that made them. They’re that well boiled 
they just melt in your mouth with goodness, with a piece 
of meat in them fit for the laird’s table. Have ye taken 
up some of my broth, Beenie, to the young lady and her 
friend up the stair ? ” 

“You’re no taking much of them yourself,” said 
Dougal, “ nor Beenie either. Bless the women, your heads 
are just turned with the grand ploy o’ going to the 
market. Me, I gang to the market and say naething about 
it, nor ever lose a bite of a bannock on that account. But 
you’re queer creatures, no to be faddomed by man. Are 
ye going to spend a lot o’ siller that ye’re in siccan a 
state ? Beenie, now, she’ll be wanting a new gown.” 

“If ye think that I, that am used to a’ the grand shoj^s 
in Edinburgh, would buy a gown at Kinloch-Rugas ” 

“Oh, when ye can get nae better, it’s aye grand to tak’ 
what ye can get,” said Dougal. “ As for Katrin, Icanna 
tell what’s come over her. Her hand’s shaking ” 

“My hand’s no shakin’ ! ” cried Katrin vehemently. 
“ I’m just as steady as any person. But I’ve been awfu’ 
busy this mornin’ putting every thing in order, and I’ve 
very little appetite. I’m no a great eater at any time.” 

“ Nor me,” said Beenie, “ and I’m tired too. I’ve just 
been turning over and over Miss Lily’s things.” 

“Ye had very little to do,” said Katrin, resenting the 
adoption of her own argument. “ Miss Lily’s things 
could easy wait. Sup up your broth, and dinna keep us all 
waiting. Sandy, here’s a grand slice for you. It’s seldom 


170 


you’ve tasted the like of that. And as soon as you’re 
done, laddie, hurry and put in the pony, for we must have 
a good sight o’ the market, Beenie and me, before it gets 
dark.” 

Dougal came out to the door to see them off, Avith his 
bonnet hanging upon the side of his head by a hair. He 
felt the presence of something in the atmosphere for which 
he could not account. What was it ? It was some 
“ploy” among the women, probably not worth a man’s 
trouble to enquire into. And, as soon as they were off, 
he had Rory to put in, and await the pleasure of “thae 
twa” upstairs. He could not refuse Lily any thing, nor, 
indeed, had he any right to refuse to Sir Robert’s niece the 
use of Rory, on whom she had already ridden about so 
often. But the lad from Edinburgh was a trial to Dougal. 
He had an uneasy feeling that it would not please his 
master to hear of this visitor, and that a strai^ge man about 
the house was not to be desired. “If it had but been a 
lassie,” he said, in that case he would have been glad that 
Miss Lily had some company to amuse her ; but a gentle- 
man, and a gentleman too that was a stranger, not even of 
the same county — a lawyer lad from the Parliament House. 
He did not willingly trust a long-leggit loon like that to 
drive Rory. He was mair fit to carry Rory than Rory to 
carry him. So that Dougal’s countenance was entirely 
overcast. 

There had been some snow in the morning, a sprinkling 
just enough to cover the ground more softly and deeply 
than the hoar frost, but that was but preliminary — there 
was a great deal more to come. Dougal stood when the 
pony was ready, pushing his cap from side to side and 
staring at the sky. “ Ye’ll do weel to bide but very short 
time. Miss Lily,” he said ; “the tea at the Manse is, 
maybe, very good, but the snow will be coming down in 
handfu’s before you get hame.” 

“ We shall not stay long, Dougal, I promise you,” Lily 
said. There was a tremble in her voice as there had been 
in Katrin’s and in Robina’s. “ The women are all clean 


171 


gyte!” Dougal said to himself. He watched them go 
away, criticising bitterly the pose of Ronald as he drove. 
‘ ‘ A man with thae long legs has no mortal need for a pony, ’ ’ 
he said ; ‘‘ they’re just a yard longer than they ought to be. 
I’m about the figure of a man, or just a thought too tall, 
for driving a sensitive beast like our Rory. Puir beast, 
but he has come to base uses,” said Dougal. I don’t know 
where he had picked up this phrase, but he was pleased 
with it, and repeated it, chuckling to himself. 

That evening, just before the darkening, when once 
more the sunset sky was flushed with all kinds of color, and 
shone in graduated tints of rose pink darkening to crimson, 
and blue melting into green, through the Manse window, 
one homely figure after another stole into the Manse parlor. 
Katrin had brought the minister a dozen of her own fresh 
eggs, and what could he do less than call her in and say, 
“ How is a’ with ye ? ” at New Year’s time, when every- 
body had a word of good wishes to say ? ‘‘ And this is 

Robina,” he added, with a touch of reserve and severity in 
his tone. Beenie could not understand how to her, always 
so regular at the kirk and known for a weel -living woman, 
the minister should be severe ; but it was easy to understand 
that on such an occasion he had a great deal on his mind. 
There was a chair at either end of the great sofa that stood 
against the wall ; for in these days furniture was arranged 
symmetrically, and it was not permitted that any thing 
should be without its proper balance. The two women 
placed themselves there modestly one at each end ; the 
great arms of the sofa half hid them in the slowly growing 
twilight. Katrin, who was nearest the door, was blotted 
out altogether. Beenie, who was at the end nearest the 
window, showed like a shadow against the light. 

And then there was a pause ; it was a very solemn pause 
indeed, like the silence in church. The minister sat in his 
big chair in the darkest part of the room, with the red 
glow of a low fire just marking that there was something 
there, but not a word, not a movement, disturbing the 
dark. The room after a while seemed to turn round to the 


172 


two watchers, it was so motionless. When Mr. Blythe 
drew a long breath, a sort of suppressed scream came from 
both of them. Was it rather a death than a marriage 
they had come to witness ? They had never seen any liv- 
ing thing so still, and the awe of the old man’s presence 
was overwhelming enough in itself. 

‘‘ What’s the matter with you,” he said almost roughly. 
‘‘ Can I not draw my breath in my own house ? ” 

Oh, sir, I beg your pardon,” cried Katrin, thankful to 
recover her voice. ‘‘ It was just so awfu’ quiet, and we’re 
no used to that. In our bit houses there’s nobody but says 
whatever comes into his head, and we’re awfu’ steering 
folk up at Dalrugas Tower.” 

“ Just in the way o’ kindness, and giving back an 
answer when you’re spoken to,” said Beenie deferentially, 
in her soft, half-apologetic voice. It was a great comfort 
to them in the circumstance, which was very unusual and 
full of responsibility, to hear themselves speak. 

‘‘ Ye must just try and possess your souls in patience till 
ye get back again,” the minister said out of his dark 
corner. It was just a grand lesson, both thought, and the 
kind of thing that the minister ought to say. And the 
silence fell again with a slow diminution of the light, and 
gradual fading of the yellow sky. To sit there without 
moving, without breathing, with always the consciousness 
of the minister unseen, fixing a penetrating look upon 
them, which probably showed him, so clever a man, the 
very recesses of their hearts, became moment by moment 
more than Katrin or Robina could bear. 

“ The young fools ; I’ll throw it all up if they dinna 
put in an appearance before that clock strikes! ” cried Mr. 
Blythe at last. ‘‘Look out of the window, one of you 
women, and see if ye can see them.” 

“ There’s nothing, minister, nothing, but a wheen 
country carts going from the market,” said Beenie in the 
role of Sister Anne. 

“ The idiots ! ” said Mr. Blythe again with that force 
of language peculiar to his country. “ Not for their ain 


173 


purposes, and them all but unlawful, can they keep their 
time.” 

“ Oh, sir, ye mustna be hard upon them at siccan a 
moment !” cried Katrin, rocking herself to and fro in 
anxiety. 

‘‘Eh, but I see the powny ! ” cried Beenie from the 
window ; “ there’s a wee laddie holding Rory. And will 
I run and open the door no to disturb Marget in the 
kitchen ? ” she said, not waiting for an answer. The spell 
of the quiet had so gained upon Robina, and the still rising 
tide of excitement, that she swept almost noiselessly into 
the narrow hall, and opened the door mysteriously to the two 
other shadows who stole in, as it seemed, out of the yellow 
light that filled up the doorway behind into a darkness 
which, turning from that wistful illumination, seemed 
complete. 


CHAPTER XX 

It was all like a dream, a scene without light or sound, 
shadows moving in the faint twilight, at first not a word 
said. Beenie remained at the door, holding the handle to 
guard the entrance. Katrin had risen up too, and stood 
against the wall, trembling very much, but not betraying 
it in this faint light. These two were in the light side of 
the room, the half made visible by the window with its 
fading sunset glimmer. The other two passed into the 
darker side and were all but lost to sight. A sudden 
flicker of the fire caught the color of Lily’s dress and 
revealed her outline for the mordent. She had taken off 
her hat, not knowing why, and the soft beaver with its 
feather was hanging down by her side in her hand. 
Katrin made a step forward and relieved her of it, trem- 
bling lest some dreadful voice should come to her ears out 
of the darkness, though not seeing the minister’s eyes, 
which shot upon her a fiery glance. Then he broke that 
strange haunted silence, in which so niiany thoughts and 


174 


passions were hidden, by his voice suddenly rising harsh, 
sounding as if it were loud : it was not at all loud, it was, 
indeed, a soft voice on ordinary occasions, only in the cir- 
cumstances and in the intense quiet it had a strange tone. 
To Ronald it sounded menacing, to Lily only half alarm- 
ing, as she knew no reason why it should be less kind than 
usual ; the women were so awe-stricken already that to them 
it was as the voice of fate. The brief little ceremony was 
as simple as could be conceived. The troth was not given, 
as in other rites, by the individuals themselves, but simply 
said by the old minister’s deepening voice, which he was 
at pains to subdue after the shock of the first words, and 
assented to by the bride and bridegroom, Lily, to the half 
horror of the two women, who gripped each other wildly 
in their excitement at the sound, giving an audible mur- 
mur of assent, while Ronald bowed, which was the usual 
form. “Yon ’ll be the English way,” Katrin whispered 
to Beenie. “ Oh, whisht, whisht! ” said the other. And 
then in the darkness there ensued a few rolling words of 
prayer, the long vowels solemnly drawn out, the long 
words following each other slowly and with a certain 
grandeur of diction in their absolute simplicity, and the 
formula common to all : “ Whom God hath joined together 
let no man put asunder.” And then there was a little stir 
in the darkness and all was over. 

“ But there’s just this to say to you, young man,” came 
out of the gloom from the old voice, quavering a little 
with feeling or fatigue : “ Forasmuch as ye have been want- 
ing before, so much the more are ye pledged now to be all 
a man ought to be to this young creature that has trusted 
herself to you. If ever I hear an ill word of your conduct 
or your care, and me living, you will have one to answer 
to that will have it in his power to do you ah ill turn, and 
will not refrain. Mind you this : if I am in the land of 
the living, and know of any hairm to this poor lassie, I 
will not refram ; and ye know what I mean, and that I am 
one that will do what I say.” 

“ If you think I require to be frightened into loving and 


175 


cherishing my bonnie wife ” said Ronald, confused 

and alarmed, but attempting to take a high tone. 

“Oh, Mr. Blythe!” cried Lily, “how little you 
know ! ” She could speak in the dark, where no one could 
see, though the light would have reduced her to silence and 
blushes. She put her hand with a pretty gesture within 
Ronald’s arm. 

“ I, maybe, know more than I’m thought to do,” he 
said gruffly ; “light that candle that you’ll find on the 
mantel-piece, and let us get our work done.” The candle 
brought suddenly to light the confused scene, all the party 
standing except the figure of the minister, large and shape- 
less in his big chair. And there was a moment of commo- 
tion, while one by one the}^ signed the necessary papers, 
the young pair quickly, the women with a grotesqueness 
of awe and difflculty which might have transferred the 
whole scene at once to the regions of the burlesque. Both 
to Katrin and Robina it was a very solemn business, slowly 
accomplished with much contortion both of countenance 
and figure. “ Women, can ye not despatch ? ” Mr. Blythe 
said sternly. “ My daughter may be here any minute, the 
time of my supposed rest is over, and this sederunt should 
be over too. Marget will be in from the kitchen with the 
lamp.” 

“ Oh, Beenie, be quick, quick ! ” murmured Lily. She 
had feared to be entreated with the constant hospitality of 
the Manse to wait until Helen came, and to take tea. It 
gave her a curious wound to feel that this was not likely 
to be the case, even though she was most anxious to 
escape. She was indeed a little frightened for Marget and 
thedamp, and for Helen and the tea ; but it hurt her that 
the minister who had just made her Ronald’s wife should 
have any hesitation. Feelings are not generally so fine in 
rural places. A bride is one to be eagerly embraced, not 
kept out of sight. Though, indeed, she did not want to 
see Helen or any one, she said almost indignantly to 
herself. 

“ And now there are your lines. Mistress Lumsden,” the 


176 


minister said. ‘‘ Keep them safe and never let them out 
of your own hands, and I wish ye all that is good. If it’s 
been a hasty step or an unconsidered, it’s you that will 
probably have to bear the wyte of it. I will not deceive 
you with smooth things ; but if there has been error at the 
beginning ” 

Excuse me,” said Ronald in a low fierce voice, ‘‘ but 
there is snow in the sky, and it’s already dark, and I must 
take my wife away.” 

‘‘ Don’t you interrupt me,” said the old minister, “ or 
I will, maybe, say more than I meant to say. If there’s 
been error at the beginning, my poor lassie, take you care 
to be all the more heedful in time to come. Do nothing 
ye cannot acknowledge in the face of day. And God 
bless you and keep you and lift up the light of his 
countenance upon you,” he said, lifting up his arms. The 
familiar action, the familiar words, subdued all the group 
in a moment. He had not meant with these words to bless 
the bride that had been brought before him as poor Lily 
had been, but it had been drawn from him phrase by 
phrase. 

And then the door opened, and Lily found herself once 
more outside in the keen air touched with the foretaste of 
snow which is so distinct in the North. The sky was 
heavy with it for half the circle from north to south, but 
in the west was something of that golden radiance still, 
and a clear blueness above, and one or two stars sparkling 
through the frost. She lifted her eyes to these with 
relief, with a feeling of consolation. Was that the light 
of His countenance that was to shine upon her ? But 
below all things were dark and dreary. To the hurry of 
excitement which had possessed her before something 
vexing, troublous, had come in. She had wished, and was 
eager to hurry away, to escape Helen, but why had she 
been hurried away, made to perceive that she was not 
intended to see Helen ? It was more fantastic than could 
be put into words. And Ronald too was in so great a 
hurry, eager to get her beyond the observation of the 


177 


people comiug from the market, almost to hide her in a 
sheltered corner, while he himself went to get the pony. 
‘‘ Nobody will see you here,” he said. She wished that 
nobody should see her, but yet an uncalled-for tear came 
to Lily’s eyes as she stood and waited. It looked almost as 
if it was a path into heaven, the narrow way which was 
spoken of in the Bible, that strip of golden light with the 
stars shining above. But it was not to heaven she wanted 
to go in the joy of her espousals, on her wedding day. 
She wanted the life that was before her — the human, the 
natural, the life that other women had ; to be taken to the 
home her husband had made for her, to be free of the 
bonds of her girlhood and the loneliness of her previous 
days. But Lily did not know, not even a step of the path 
before her. It rushed upon her now that he had never said 
a word, never one definite word. She did not know what 
was going to happen to-morrow. To-night it was too late, 
certainly too late, to go further than Dalrugas, but to- 
morrow ! She remembered now suddenly, clearly, that to 
all her questions and imaginings what they were to do he 
had never made one distinct reply. He had allowed her 
to talk and to imagine what was going to be, but he had 
said not a word. There seemed nothing, nothing clear in 
all the world but that one golden path leading up into the 
sky. ‘‘ Lift up the light of His countenance ujDon you.” 
That did not mean, Lily thought, half pagan as the youth- 
ful thinker so often is, the blessing that is life and joy, 
but rather that which is consolation and calm. And it was 
not consolation or calm she wanted, but happiness and 
delight. She wanted to be able to go out upon the world 
with her arm in her husband’s and her head high, and to 
shape her new life as other young women did — a separate 
thing, a new thing, individual to themselves, not any 
repetition or going back. Standing there in the dark 
corner, hidden till he could find the pony and take her up 
secretly out of sight, hurrying away not to be seen by any 
one — Lily’s heart revolted at these precautions, even 
though it had been to a certain extent her own desire they 
12 


178 


should be taken. But, oh ! it was so different, her own 
desire ! that was only the bridal instinct to hide its shy 
happiness, its tremor of novelty and wonder. It was not 
concealment she had wanted, but withdrawal from the 
gaze of the crowd ; but it was concealment that was in 
Ronald’s thought, a thing always shameful, not modest, 
not maidenly, but an expedient of guilt. 

Perhaps Ronald was just a little too long getting the 
pony ; but he was not very long. He had her safely in 
the little geeg, with all her wraps carefully round her, 
before fifteen minutes had passed ; but fifteen minutes in 
some circumstances are more than as many hours in others. 
Lily was very silent at first, and he had hard ado to rouse 
her from the reflections that had seized upon her. ‘‘ What 
are we going to do?” she said out of the heaviness of 
these reflections, when all that found its way to his lips 
was the babble of love at its climax. Was it that she 
loved him less than he loved her ? He whispered this in 
her ear, with one arm holding her close, while Rory made 
his way vigorously along the road, scenting his stable, and 
also the snow that was coming. Lily made no answer to 
the suggestion. Certainly that murmur of love did not 
seem to satisfy her. She was overcome by it now and 
then, and sat silent, feeling the pressure of his arm, and 
the consciousness that there was nobody but him and her- 
self in the world, with the seductive bewilderment of emo- 
tion shared and intensified, yet from time to time awoke 
sharply to feel the force over again of that question : 
“ What are we going to do ? ” Oh, why had she not 
insisted on an answer to it before ? The night grew 
darker, the snow began to fall in large flakes. They were 
more and more isolated from the world which was invisible 
round them, nothing but Rory tossing his shaggy ears and 
snorting at the snow that melted into his nostrils. By the 
time they reached the Tower, discovering vaguely, all at 
once, the glimmer of the lights and the voice of Dougal 
calling to the pony to moderate the impatience of his 
delight at sight of his own stable, they were so covered 


179 


with snow that it was difficult for Lily to shake herself 
clear of it as she stumbled down at the great door. “ Bide 
a moment, bide a moment ; just take the plaid off her 
bodily. It’s mair snaw than plaiden!” cried Dougal. 

Ye little deevil, stand still, will ye ? Ye’ll get neither 
bite nor sup till your time comes. Have ye no seen the 
ithers on the road ? Silly taupies to bide so long, and 
maybe be stormsted in the end ! ” 

“ They’re on the road, Dougal,” cried Lily, with 
humility, remembering that she had never once thought of 
Katrin and Beenie. “ I am sure they’re on the road.” 

“ They had better be that,” he said angrily. What 
keepit them, I’m asking ? Sir, if ye’ll be advised by me, 
ye’ll just bid good-by to the young leddy and make your 
way to Tam’s as fast as ye can, for every half-hour will 
make it waur. It’s on for a night and a day, or I have 
nae knowledge of the weather.” 

“ Half-an-hour can’t make much difference, Dougal,” 
said Ronald, with a laugh. 

“ Oh, can it no ? It’s easy to see ye ken little of our 
moor. And the e’en will be as black as midnicht, and the 
snaw bewildering, so that ye’ll just turn round and round 
about, and likely lie down in a whin bush, and never wake 
more.” 

A half shriek came from Lily in the doorway, while 
Ronald’s laugh rang out into the night. “ It will be no 
worse in half-an-hour,” he said. 

‘‘ Ay, will it! There’s a wee bit light in the west the 
noo, but there will be nane then. Heigh ! is’t you ? 
Weel, that’s aye something,” Dougal said, as the other 
little vehicle, with its weight of snow-covered figures, came 
suddenly into the light ; and in the bustle of the second 
arrival, which was much more complicated than the first, 
nothing more was said. Katrin and Beenie had shaken 
off the awe of their conspiracy. They were full of spirits 
and laughter, and their little cart crowded with parcels of 
every kind. They had found time to buy half the market, 
as Dougal said, and they occupied him so completely with 


180 


their talk, and the bustle of getting them and their cargo 
safely deposited indoors, that the young couple stole up- 
stairs unnoticed. ‘‘ Tam may whistle for me to-night,” 
Ronald said, ‘‘and Dougal growl till he’s tired, and the 
snow fall as much as it pleases. I’m safe of my shelter, 
Lily. A friend in court is worth many a year’s fee.” 

“ Who is your friend in court ? ” she said, shivering a 
little. The cold and the agitation had been a little too 
much for Lily. Her teeth chattered, the light swam in 
her eyes. 

It was Katrin who was the Providence of the young 
people. She it was who ordained peremptorily, not letting 
Dougal say a word, that to send Mr. Lumsden off to Tam’s 
cottage on such a night was such a thing as had never 
been heard of. 

“ I wouldna turn out a dog,” she cried, “ to find its way, 
poor beast, across the moor.” 

“ I warned the lad,” said Dougal; “ I toll’d him every 
half-hour would make it waur. It is his ain fault if he 
is late. What have you and me to do harboring a’ the 
young callants in the country, or out of it, that may come 
here after Miss Lily ? You’ve just got some nonsense 
about true love in your head.” 

“ Am I the person,” said Katrin, “ to have true love 
cast in my face, me that have been married upon you, 
Dougal, these thirty year ? Ka, na ! I’m no that kind of 
woman ; but I have peety in my heart, and there’s a dozen 
empty rooms in this house. I think it’s just a shame 
when I think of the poor bodies that are about, maybe 
sleepin’ out on the cauld moor. I’ll not take the life of 
this young lad, turning him away, and neither shall you, 
my man, if you want to have any comfort in your ain 
life.” 

“ I warned him,” said Dougal ; “ if he didna take my 
warning, it’s his ain wyte.” 

“ It shanna be mine nor yours either,” said Katrin, and, 
indeed, even Dougal, when he looked out, perceived that 
there was nothing to be said. The snow had fallen so 


181 


continuously since their arrival that already every trace, 
either of wheels or hoofs, was filled up. The whiteness 
lay unbroken in the court-yard and up to the very door, as 
if no one had come near the house for days. Sandy was 
in the stable with his lantern, hissing over the little black 
pony as he rubbed him down ; but even Sandy’s steps to 
the stable were wiped out by the snow-storm. It covered 
every thing, fair things and foul, and, above all, every 
trace of a path or road. 

I’m no easy in my mind about what Sir Robert would 
say,” he muttered, pushing his cap to his other ear. 

‘‘ And what would Sir Robert say ? If it had been a lad 
on the tramp, a gangrel person or selling prins about the 
road, he would never have grudged him a bed, or at the 
worst a pickle straw in the stable, on such a night. And 
this is a young gentleman of the family of the Lumsdens 
of Pontalloch, kent folk, and as much thought of as any 
person. Is’t a pickle straw the laird would have ofiPered 
to a gentleman’s son like that ? He’s just biding here till 
the storm’s over, if it was a week or a fortnicht, and I’ll 
answer for it to the laird! ” Katrin cried. 

Dougal looked at her in consternation. “ A week or a 
fortnight ! It’s no decent for the young leddy,” he said. 

It’s just a grand chance for the young lady — company 
to pass the time till her, and her all her lane. If he will 
bide — but maybe he will not bide,” said Katrin, with a 
sigh. Katrin, too, was a little anxious, as Lily was, for 
what to-morrow would bring forth. She had but taken 
the bull by the horns, in Dougal’s person, saying the worst 
that could be said. But it’s my hope, Beenie,” she said 
afterward, with an anxious countenance, “ that he’ll just 
take his bonnie wife away to his ain house as soon as the 
snaw’s awa’.” 

“ Oh, ay ! ye needna have any doubt of that,” said 
Beenie, with a broad smile of content. 

“ Then you’ll just take oif your grand gown and serve 
them with their dinner. I have naething but the birds to 
put to the fire, and that will take little time ; and if they 


182 


never had a good dinner before nor after, they shall have 
one that any prince might eat, between you and me, 
Robina, poor things, on their wedding night.” 


CHAPTER XXI 

The snow-storm lasted for about a week, day after day, 
with an occasional interval, with winds that drifted it, and 
dreadful nights of frost that made it shrink, but covered it 
over with sparkling crystals, and with occasional move- 
ments of a more genial temperature, that touched the sur- 
face only to make it freeze again more fiercely when that 
relenting was over. The whole landscape was turned to 
whiteness, and the moor, with all its irregulaiTines, rounded 
as if a heavy white blanket had been laid over the hum- 
mocks of the ling and the hollows and deep cuttings. 
The hills were white, too, but showing great seams and 
crevasses of darkness, from which all the magical color had 
been taken by the absence of light. Black and white was 
what every thing was reduced to, like the winter Alps, with 
a gray sky overhead still heavy with inexhaustible snow. 
This snow-storm was ‘‘ a special providence ” to the in- 
habitants of Dalrugas — at least to most of them. Dougal 
grumbled, and suggested various wa3^s in which it might 
be possible for the lad from Edinburgh to get away. He 
might walk two miles north, to a village on the main road, 
where the coach was bound to pass every lawful day, 
whether it snowed or whether it blew ; or he might get 
the geeg from the inn at Kinloch-Rugas to carry him 
south, and strike the route of another coach also bound to 
travel on every lawful day. But Dougal talked to the air, 
and nobody gave him heed : not to say that the gentle- 
man from Edinburgh found means to conciliate him by 
degrees, and that, at last, a crack with Mr. Lumsden be- 
came a great relief to Dougal from the unmitigated chatter 


183 


of the womankind by which he was surrounded night 
and day. 

This week of snow flew as if on wings. They were shut 
off from all intrusion, and even from every invading ques- 
tion, by the impossibility of overstepping that barrier 
which nature had placed around them ; they lived as in a 
dream, which circumstances had thus made possible with- 
out any strain of nature. Nobody could turn a stranger 
out into the snow, not Sir Robert himself. Had he been 
there, however little he liked his visitor, he would have 
been compelled to keep him in his house, and treat him 
like a favored guest. Not even an enemy’s dog could have 
been turned out into the snow. It made every thing legiti ' 
mate, every thing simple and natural. I don’t know that 
Lily required this thought to support her, for, indeed, she 
was not at that time aware that any secret was made of 
the marriage, that it was concealed from any one in the 
house, even Dougal, or that Helen Blythe at the Manse, 
for instance, had not been made aware of it by that time. 
She had never clearly entered into the question why Helen 
Blythe had not been present, why the ceremony had been 
performed in the darkening, and so much mystery had 
surrounded it, except by the natural reason that no obser- 
vation which could be avoided should be drawn upon the 
bride, and that, indeed, all possibility of vulgar remark 
should be guarded against. The question, what was to 
be done next ? had filled Lily’s mind on that day ; but the 
snow had silenced it and covered it over like the ling 
bushes and the burn, which no longer made its usual trill 
of running remark, but was also hushed and bound by the 
new conditions which modified all the life of this portion 
of the earth. The moor and all its surroundings hung 
between heaven and earth in a great silence during this 
period. The gray sky hung low, so that it seemed as if an 
unwary wayfarer, if he went far enough against that heavy 
horizon, might strike against it, blinded as he must have 
been by the whirling flakes that danced and fluttered down, 
sometimes quickening in pace like the variations of a swift 


184 


strathspey, sometimes falling large and deliberate like 
those dilated flakes of fire that fell on the burning sands in 
the Inferno. There were no images, however different in 
sentiment, that might not have been applied to that constant 
falling. It was snow, always snow, and yet there was 
in it all the variety of poetry when you looked at it, 
so to speak, from within, looking through it upon an 
empty world in which no other life or variety seemed 
to be left. 

Sometimes, however, the pair sallied forth, notwith- 
standing the snow, to breathe the crisp and frosty air, and 
to feel with delight the great atmosphere and outdoor 
world around them instead of four walls. Lily wore a 
great camlet cloak, rough, but a protection against both 
wet and chill, with a large silver clasp under her chin, and 
her head and shoulders warmly hooded and wrapped in her 
plaid of the Ramsay color, which she wore as fair Ramsays 
did in Allan Ramsaj^’s verse. Lily’s eyes sparkled under 
the tartan screen, and not to risk the chilling of a hand 
which it would have been necessary to put forth to clasp 
his arm, Ronald in his big coat walked with his arm round 
her, to steady her on the snow ; for every path was oblit- 
erated, and they never knew when they might not stumble 
over a stifled burn or among the heathery hillocks of the 
moor. These walks were not long, but they were delight- 
ful in the stillness and loneliness, the white flakes clothing 
them all over in another coat, lighting upon Lily’s hair and 
Ronald’s beard, getting into their eyes, half blinding them 
with the sudden moisture, and the laughter that followed. 
I will not attempt to give any account of the talk with 
which they beguiled both these devious rambles and the 
long companionship indoors in the warm room from which 
they looked out with so much comfort on the white and 
solitary world. It harmonized and made every thing legit- 
imate, that lucky snow. One could not ask: ‘‘ What shall 
we do to-morrow ? ” in the sight of the absolute impossi- 
bility of doing any thing. It was not the bridegroom but 
Nature herself who had arranged this honeymoon. If it 


185 


would but last ! But then it was in the nature of things 
that it could not last. 

The frost began to break up a little on the eighth day, 
or rather it was not the frost that broke up, but the sky 
that cleared. In the evening instead of the heavy gray 
there came a break which the sky looked through, and in 
it a star or two, which somehow changed altogether the 
aspect of affairs. That evening, as she stood looking out 
at the break so welcome to every-body, but which she was 
not so sure of welcoming as other people were, Lily felt the 
question again stir, like a bird in its nest, in the hushed 
happiness of her heart. In the morning,, when she looked 
out upon a world that had again become light, with blue 
overhead, and a faint promise of sun, and no snow falling, 
it came back more strongly, this time like a secret ache. 
The women and Dougal and Sandy and even the ponies 
were full of delight in the end of the storm. ‘‘ What a 
bonnie morning ! ” they shouted to each other, waking 
Lily from her sleep. A bonnie morning ! There was color 
again on the hills and color in the sky. The distance was 
no longer shut out, as by a door, by the heavy firmament : 
it was remote, it was full of air, it led away into the world, 
into worlds unseen. As Lily gazed a golden ray came 
out of it and struck along the snow in a fine line. Oh, it 
was bonnie ! as they called to each other in the yard, as 
Rory snorted in his stable, and all the chickens cackled, 
gathering about Katrin’s feet. The snow was over ! The 
storm was over ! In a little while the whiteness would 
disappear and the moor would be green again. ‘‘ What 
are we going to do ? ” All nature seemed to ask the 
question. 

“ I wish,” said Ronald, ‘‘ those fowls would cease their 
rejoicings about the end of the snow. I wish the snow 
could have lasted another fortnight, Lily ; though perhaps 
I should not say that, for I could not have taken advantage 
of it. I should need to have invented some means of 
getting away.” 

“ Because you were tired of it, Ronald ? ” she said, with 


186 


a smile ; but tbe smile was not so bright as it bad been. 
It was not Lily’s snow-smile, all light and radiance ; it was 
one into which the question had come, a little wistful, a 
little anxious. Konald saw, and his heart grieved at the 
change. 

“ That’s the likely reason !” he said, with alaugh; ‘‘ but, 
oh, Lily, my bonnie love, here is the Parliament House 
all astir again, the judges sitting, and all the work 
begun.” 

Well,” she said, that smile of hers shooting out a 
pure beam of fire upon him, “ I am ready, Ronald, I am 
ready, too.” 

‘‘ Ready to speed the parting husband, and to wish me 
good luck ? ” he said with a faint quiver in his voice. 
He was not a coward by nature, but Ronald this time was 
afraid. He had not forgotten the question : “ What are 
we going to do ? ” which had been expressed in every 
line of Lily’s face, in every tone of her voice, before the 
evening of the marriage. He knew it had come again, but 
he did not know how he was to meet it. He plunged into 
the inevitable conflict with his heart in his mouth. 

‘‘To speed the parting Are you going, Ronald, 

are you thinking of going, without me ? ” 

“ My dearest,” he said, spreading out his hands in 
deprecation, “ it’s like rending me asunder ; it is like 
tearing my heart out of my bosom.” 

“I am not asking you what it is like!” cried Lily. 
“ What I am asking is your meaning. W ere you thinking 
of going without me ? ” 

“Lily, Lily !” he said, “don’t be so dreadfully hard 
upon me ! What am I to do ? I know nothing else that 
I can do.” 

“Oh, if it’s only that,” she said, “ I can tell you, and 
very easy, what to do. You will just take me down to 
Kinloch-Rugas, or to that other place where the coach 
stops, and wrap me well in my camlet cloak and in my 
tartan plaid, and I’ll not feel the cold, not so much as you 
will, for women’s blood is warm, and when we get to 


187 


Edinburgh we will take the topmost story of a house, and 
make it as warm as a nest, and get the first sunshine and 
the bonnie view away to Fife and the north. And Beenie 
will follow us with my things and her own ; but we’ll just 
be all alone for the first day or two, and I will make you 
your dinner with my own hands,” said Lily, holding up 
those useful implements with a look of triumph, which 
was, alas ! too bright, which was like the sun when a storm 
is coming : brilliant with alarm and a sense of something 
very different to come. 

“ They don’t look very fit for it, those bits of white 
hands,” he said, eager, if possible, by any means to divert 
her from the more important question, and he took her 
hands in his and kissed them ; but Lily was not to be 
diverted in this way. 

‘‘ You may think what you like of how they look, but 
they are just a very useful pair of hands, and can cook you 
a Scots collop or a chicken or fish in sauce as well as any 
person. I know what I have undertaken, and if you think 
I will break down, you are mistaken, Ronald Lumsden, 
in me.” 

“ I am not mistaken in you, Lily. I know there is 
nothing you could not do if you were to try ; but am I to 
be the one to make a drudge of my Lily — I that would like 
her to eat of the fat and drink of the sweet, as the min- 
isters say, and have no trouble all her days ? ” 

“ It depends upon what you call trouble,” said Lily, still 
holding up her flag. “ Trouble I suppose we shall have, 
sooner or later, or we’ll be more than mortal ; but to serve 
you your dinner is what I would like to do. You’ll go out 
to the Parliament House and work to get the siller, for it 
must be allowed that between us we have not much of the 
siller, and you cannot buy either collops or chuckies with- 
out it, nor scarcely even a haddie or a herring out of the 
sea. But that’s the man’s share. And then I will buy it 
and clean it, and put it on in the pot, and you will eat of 
your wife’s cooking and your heart will be glad. Do you 
think I want to go back to George Square, or a fine house 


188 


in one of the new Crescents, and sit with my hands before 
me ? Not me, not me ! ” 

‘‘ My bonnie Lily,” he cried, it’s a bonnie dream, and 
like yourself, and if you only cooked a crust, it would be 
better than all the grand French kickshaws in the world or 
the English puddings to me.” 

‘‘ You need not be so humble, sir,” said Lily ; I will 
cook no crust. It will be savory meat, such as thy soul 
loveth ; though I’ll not cheat you as that designing woman 
Rebekah did.” 

‘^My bonnie Lily, you’ll always do more for me, and 
better forme, than I deserve,” he cried. “ Is that the post- 
man for the first time coming up the road from the town ? ” 

They went to the window to look out at this remarkable 
phenomenon, and there he kept her, pointing out already 
the break of the snow upon the side of the moor, revealing 
the little current of the burn, and something of the edge 
of the road, along which, wonderful sight ! that solitary 
figure was making its way. “ But it will not be passable, 
I think, till to-morrow for any wheeled thing, so we will 
make ourselves happy for another day,” Ronald said ; and 
this was all the answer he gave her. He was very full of 
caresses, of fond speeches, and lover’s talk all day. He 
scarcely left an opening for any thing more serious. If 
Lily began again with her question, he always found some 
way of stopping her mouth. Perhaps she was not unwill- 
ing, in a natural shrinking from conflict, to have her mouth 
stopped. But there rose between them an uneasy sense 
of something to be explained, something to be unravelled, 
a desire on one side which was to encounter on the other 
resistance not to be overcome. 

Ronald went out to Dougal after dinner and stood by 
him while he suppered the pony. “ I think the roads will 
be clear to-morrow, Dougal,” he said. 

“ I wouldna wonder,” said Dougal. His opinion was 
that the lad from Edinburgh would just sorn on there for- 
ever eating Sir Robert’s good meat and would never more 
go away. 


189 


“ Which do you think would be best ? to lend me Rory 
and the little cart to take me in to Kinloch-Rugas, or to 
send for the geeg from the inn to catch the coach on the 
South Road at Inverlochers ? ” 

“ I could scarcely gie an opinion,” said Dougal. ‘‘ A 
stoot gentleman o’ your age might maybe just as easy 
walk.” 

When Dougal said ‘‘a stoot gentleman” he did not 
mean to imply that Ronald was corpulent, but that he was 
a strong fellow and wanted no pony to take him four 
miles. 

That’s true enough,” said Ronald ; ‘‘ but there’s my 
portmanteau, which is rather heavy to carry.” 

“As grand as you ” Dougal began, but then he 

stopped and reflected that he was, so to speak, on his own 
doorstep (in the absence of Sir Robert), and that it was a 
betrayal of all the traditions of hospitality to be rude to a 
guest, especially to one who was about to take himself away. 
“ Weel,” he added quickly, with a push to his bonnet, I 
canna spare you Rory — the j^oung leddy might be wanting 
a ride ; but Sandy and the black powny will take in the 
bit box if ye’re sure that you’ve made up your mind — 
at last.” 

“ I dare say you thought I was never going to do that,” 
Ronald said, with a laugh. 

And then Dougal melted too. “ Oh,” he said, “ I just 
thought you knew when you were in good quarters,” in a 
more friendly voice. 

“ And did not you think I was a sensible fellow,” said 
the amiable guest, “ to lie warm and feed well instead of 
fighting two or three days, or maybe more, through the 
snow ? But now the courts are opened, and the judges 
sitting, and every -body waiting for me. I would much 
rather bide where I am, but I must go.” 

“ If it’s for your ain interest,” said Dougal ; “ and I 
wudna wonder but ye’re a wee tired of seeing naebody and 
doing naething, no even a gun on your shoulder. I’ll bid 
the laddie be ready, I’ll say, at sax of the clock.” 


190 


‘‘ Six o’clock ! ” said Ronald in dismay ; “ the coach 
does not leave till ten.” 

Weel, I’ll say aicht if you like. You should be down 
in good time. Whiles there are a heap of passengers, and 
mair especial after a storm like this, that has shut up a’ 
the roads.” 

‘‘ I shall be very much obliged to you, Dougal. I have 
been obliged to you all the time. I will explain the cir- 
cumstances to Sir Robert if he is in Edinburgh in the 
spring, and I will tell him that Katrin and you have been 
more than kind.” 

“ ’Deed, and if I were you,” said Dougal, “ I would just 
keep a calm sough and say naething to Sir Robert. He 
might wonder how ye got here ; he would maybe no think 

that our young leddy I’m wanting no certificate frae 

any strange gentleman,” said Dougal, “ and least said is 
soonest mended. There are folk that canna bide to hear 
their ain house spoke of by a stranger, nor friends collecting 
about it that might maybe no just be approved. No, no, 
baud you your tongue and keep your ain counsel ; and so 
far as things have gaen, you’ll hear nae more about it frae 
Katrin or me.” 

Ronald was confounded by this speech. “ So far as 
things have gaen.” Had this rough fellow any idea how 
far they had gone ? Had his wife told him what happened 
in the Manse parlor ? Had his suspicions penetrated the 
whole story ? But Dougal turned back to the pony with 
a preference so unaffected, and whistled “ Charlie is my 
darling” with so distinct an intention of dismissing his 
interlocutor, that Ronald could not imagine him to see in 
the least into the millstone of this involved affair. Dougal 
was much more occupied with his own affairs than either 
those of Lily or those so very little known to him of the 
strange gentleman who had kept Lily company during the 
daft days, the saturnalia of the year. He proceeded with 
his work, pausing sometimes to swing his arms and smite 
his breast for cold, clanking out and in through the warm 
atmosphere of the stable to the wildly cold and sharp air 


191 


outside, absorbed more than was at all necessary in the 
meal and the toilet of Rory, and taking no further heed of 
the guest. 


CHAPTER XXII 

“ At last,” said Ronald, coming upstairs with his light- 
springing foot three steps at a time, “ at last, Lily, I have 
settled with Dougal, and I am starting to-morrow morn- 
ing : at eight, he says, but nine will do. And this for a 
little while, my darling, will be my last night in the nest.” 

The room had undergone a wonderful change since it 
had first been Lily’s bower. It had changed much while 
she was there alone, but the change was much greater 
within the last week than all that had happened before. 
It had become a home : there were two chairs by the fire, 
there was an indefinable consciousness in every thing of 
two minds, two people, the union and conjunction which 
make society. It was all warm, social, breathing of life, 
no suggestion in it of loneliness or longing, or unsatisfied 
thought, or the solitude which breathes a chill through 
every comfort. Lily, sitting alone, had been, it was very 
clear, left but for a moment. This sentiment cannot, 
indeed, expand stone walls, yet the once dull and chilly 
drawing-room, with its deep small windows, seemed to 
possess a widened circle, a fuller atmosphere. Into this 
already had there pushed a care or two, the reflection of 
the diversities of two minds as well as their union ? If so, 
it only helped to widen the sphere still further, to make it 
more representative of the world. Lily looked up from 
the book she had taken up in her husband’s absence with 
a change of countenance and sudden exclamation. 

You are going to-morrow ? Not loef ” she cried. 

My bonnie Lily, you were always reasonable — how 
could it be we f I’m thankful, though, that you meant it 
to be we, for it was not a happy thought that my own 


192 


lassie, my wife of a week old, was pushing me away, back 
with the first loosening of the frosts, into the world.” 

“ You never thought that, you never could have thought 
that ! ” cried Lily, divided between indignation and a 
tumult of new feeling that rose in her. And then she 
covered her face with her hands. ‘‘Are you going to 
leave me here, Ronald, my lane, my lane?” she cried, 
with a tone of anguish in her voice. 

He was behind her, drawing her head upon his shoulder, 
soothing her in every way he knew. “ Oh, Lily, my dar- 
ling, don’t say I have beguiled you ! What could it be 
else, what could it be ? I might have held out by myself 
and kept away. I might have sworn I Avould never go 
near you, for your sweet sake. Would you rather I had 
done that, Lily ? Is it not better to belong to each other, 
my darling, at any cost, so as to be ready in a moment to 
take advantage of a bright day when it comes ? ” 

“ Of a bright day when it comes ? ” she said, suddenly 
taking her hands from her face. A chill as if of the ice 
outside came upon Lily. She was as white as the snow, 
and cold, and trembled. “ Is that all — is that all that is 
between you and me, Ronald ? ” she cried. 

“ Now, Lily, my dearest, how can you ask such a ques- 
tion ? Is that all ? Nothing is all ! There are no bounds 
to what is between you and me ; but because we have to 
be parted for a time that was not a reason for always 
keeping apart, was it, Lily ? I thought, my darling, you 
agreed with me there. We have had a happy honeymoon 
as ever any pair bad, happier, I think, than ever any 
blessed man but me. And now I must go out to the bleak 
world to work for my bonnie wife. Oh, it will be a bleak 
world no longer ; it will all be bright with the thought 
that it is for my bonnie Lily. And you will just wait and 
keep your heart in a kist of gold, and lock it with a silver 
key.” 

“ Ah, that was what she says she should have done be- 
fore ” cried Lily with a sharp ring of pain in her voice. 

Then she subdued herself and looked up into his face. “ I 


193 


am ready to share whatever you have, Ronald. I want 
no luxuries, no grand house. I want no time to get ready. 
I’ll be up before you to-morrow and my little things in a 
bundle and ready to follow you, if it was in a baggage- 
wagon or at the plough’s tail ! ” 

“ I almost wish it was that,” he said, eager for any 
diversion. “ If I had been a ploughman lad, coming over 
the hills to Nannie O; with a little cot to take her to as 
soon as she could be my own ! ” These were echoes of the 
songs Lily had sung to him, and he to her, in their hermit- 
age when shut in by the snow. 

“ But just up under the roof in a high house in the old 
town, or one of the new ones out to the west of Princes 
Street — that new row, with a nice clean stair and a door to 
it to shut it in : to me that would be as good as any little 
cot upon the ploughed fields.” Lily spoke eagerly, turn- 
ing round to him with hands involuntarily clasped. 

‘‘ A strange place,” he said, “ for Sir Robert Ramsay’s 
heir.” 

“ Oh, what am I caring for Sir Robert Ramsay ! If he 
was ill and wanted me, I would be at his call night and 
day — he is my uncle, whatever happens; but because he is 
rich and can leave me a fortune! that is nothing, Ronald, 
to you and me.” 

He made no immediate reply, but smoothed the little 
curls of her hair upon her forehead, which was at once an 
easier and a much more pleasant thing to do. 

‘‘ Besides,” she said, ‘‘ I have known plenty of kent 
folk, as good as you or me, who lived, and just liked it 
very well, up a common stair.” 

‘‘ I would not like my Lily, coming out of George Square, 
to set up in life like that.” 

‘‘ Would you like your Lil}^,” she cried again, turning 
upon him with glowing cheeks, ‘‘ to sit alone and pingle at 
her seam and eat her heart away, even at George Square, 
where she might see you whiles, or, worse still, here at 
Dalrugas,” she said, springing from her seat with energy, 
“to be smoored in the snow ? ” 

13 


194 


He followed her round to the window, and stood holding 
her in his arm and looking at her admiringly. “ You will 
never be smoored in the snow, my Lily ! The fire in you 
is enough to melt it into rivers all about.” 

‘‘ Rivers that will carry me — where ? ” she cried in a 
tone half of laughter, half of despair. 

“Listen to me, my darling,” he said. “We will be 
practical : there is always the poetry to fall back upon. 
For one thing, I’ve no house, even if it were up a common 
stair or in the highest house of the old town, to take you 
to. Houses, as you know as well as me, can only be got 
at the term. There is no chance now till Whit-Sunday of 
finding one. We must just be patient, Lily ; we can do 
no more. It is not you, my darling, that will suffer the 
most. Think of me in all the old places that will mind me 
of you at every moment, and seeing all the folk that know 
you, and even hearing your name ” 

“ Oh,” cried Lily, and then suddenly she fell a-crying, 
leaning on her husband, “ I would like to hear your name 
now and then just to give me heart, and to se ; the folk 
that know you, and the old places ” 

“ My bonnie Lily ! ” he cried. 

Perhaps this outburst did her good. She cried for a 
long time, and all the evening an occasional sob interrupted 
her voice, like the lingering passion of a child. But Lily, 
like a child, had to yield to that voice of the practical, the 
voice of reason. She said no more at least, but sadly 
assisted at the packing of the portmanteau, which had been 
brought across the snow somehow from the cottage in 
which Ronald had found refuge before the storm and all 
its privileges began. 

“ I am not going with him,” she said to Robina, 
when these doleful preparations were over. “You see, 
there are no preparations made, and you cannot get a 
house between the terms. You might have minded 
me of that, Beenie. What is the use of being a person 
of experience if you cannot tell folk that are apt to 
forget ? ” 


195 


I ought to have minded, my bormie dear,” said Eeenie 
with penitence. 

‘‘ And it’s a long time till Whit-Sunday ; but we’ll need 
to have patience,” Lily said. 

‘‘So we will, my darling bairn,” Beenie replied. 

“ You say that very cut and dry. You are not surprised ; 
you look as if you had known it all the time.” 

“ Eh, Miss Lily, my dear, how could I help but ken ? 
Here’s a young gentleman that has little siller, and no the 
mate that Sir Robert would choose.” 

’“I wish,” cried Lily, “that Sir Robert was at the 
bottom of the sea ! No, no, I’m wishing him no harm, 
but, oh, if he only had nothing to do with me ! ” 

“ The only thing ye canna do in this world is to change 
your blood and kin,” said Beenie ; “ but, oh. Miss Lily, ye 
must just be real reasonable and think. If he were to take 
you away, it would spoil a’. He has gotten you for his 
ain, and you have gotten him for your ain, and nothing 
can come between you two. But he hasna the siller to 
give ye such a down -sitting as you should have, and nae 
house at all possible at this time of the year. No, I’m no 
way surprised. I just knew that was how it had to be, and 
Katrin too. It would be just flyin’ in the face of Provi- 
dence, she says, to take ye away off to Edinburgh, without 
a place for the sole of your foot, when ye have a’ your 
uncle’s good house at your disposition, and good living 
and folk about you that tak’ a great interest in you. 
Katrin herself she canna bide the thought of losing her 
bonnie leddy. ‘ If Miss Lily goes. I’ll just take my fit in 
my hand and go away after her,’ she says. But what for 
should ye go ? It will be far more comfortable here.” 

“ Comfortable ! ” said Lily in high disdain, “ and parted 
from my husband!” The word was not familiar to her 
lips, and it brought a flush of color over her face. 

“ Oh, whisht, my bonnie leddy,” Beenie cried. 

“ Why should I whisht ? for it is true. I might not 
have said it before, but I will say it now, for where he is 
I ought to be, and whatever he has I ought to share, and 


196 


what do I care for Doiigal’s birds and Katrin’s fine cooking 
when my Ronald (that has aye a fine appetite for his 
dinner,” cried Lily in a parenthesis, with a flash of her 
girlish humor) ‘Ms away ? ” The last words were said in 
a drooping tone. Her mood changed like the changing 
skies. Even now she had irruptions of laughter into the 
midst of her trouble, which was not yet trouble, indeed, so 
long as he was still not absolutely gone; and who could 
tell what might happen before morning, the chill morning 
of the parting day ? 

Lily was up and astir early on that terrible morning. 
There had been a hope in her mind that Providence would 
re-tighten the bonds of the frost and bring the snow blinding 
and suffocating to stop all possibility of travel ; but, alas ! 
that was not the case : bands of faint blue diversified the 
yellow grayness of the clouds, and the early sun gave a be- 
wildering glint over the moor, making the snow garment 
shrink a little more and show its rents and crevasses. Every 
thing was cheerfully astir in the yard, the black pony rear- 
ing as Sandy backed him into the shafts of the cart, snorting 
and shaking his head for joy at thought of the outing, and 
the sniff of the fresh, exhilarating air into which, as yet, 
there had come little of the limpness of the thaw. There 
was an air out of doors partly of pleasure in the excitement 
of the departure, or at least in the little commotion about 
something which is an agreeable break in the monotony 
of all rural solitudes. Dougal looked on and criticised 
with his hands in his pockets and gave Sandy directions 
as if this were the first time the boy had ever touched the 
pony which had been his charge for more than a year ; 
and Katrin, too, stood at the door watching all these prep- 
arations, though the air was cold as January air could 
be. Upstairs there was a very different scene. Lily had 
tried to insist upon driving to the town to see her husband 
off, a proposal which was crushed by both Ronald and 
Robina with horror. “Expose yourseP to the whole 
countryside ! ” Beenie cried. 

“ Expose myself ! and me his wife ! Who should see 


197 


him off if not his wife?” said Lily. And then Ronald 
came behind her and drew her against his breast once 
more. 

My bonnie Lily ! We need not yet flourish that be- 
fore the world. You are as safe here as a bird in its nest. 
Why should we set everybody talking about you and me ? 
Sir Robert will hear soon enough and there is no need to 
send him word. There’s nobody to penetrate our secret 
and publish it if you will be patient a little till better 
things can be.” 

“ Our secret ! ” said Lily, springing from his hold with 
a great cry. 

‘‘ A secret that is well shared by those that care for my 
Lily ; but we need not flourish it before the world.” 
Lily’s color rose from pale to red, then faded. She stood 
apart from him, her countenance changing ; her pride was 
deeply wounded that she should be supposed to be de- 
sirous of flourishing any thing before the world. It was 
an injury to her and a scorn, though this was no moment 
to resent it, and the sharp impression only mingled with 
the anguish of parting a sense of being wronged and mis- 
judged, which was very hard to bear. ‘‘ I may come down 
to the door, I suppose,” she said, in a voice from which 
she tried to banish every tone of offence. 

“No, my darling,” he said, “ not even to the door. I 
could not say farewell to my Lily with strangers looking 
on. I will like to think when I am gone of every thing 
round you here, all the old chairs and tables even, where 
my Lily and I have had our honeymoon.” Oh, there was 
nothing to complain of in the warmth of his farewell. No 
man could have loved his young wife better, or have held 
her close to him with deeper feeling. “ I will soon be 
back, I will soon be back ! ” he cried. His eyes were wet 
like hers. It was as great a thing for him to tear himself 
away as it was for her to remain behind and see him go. 
But then Lily could only stand trembling and weeping at 
the head of the stairs, that nobody might see, and catch a 
distorted glimpse through the window over the door of the 


198 


cart, into wliich he got with Sandy, while Donga! still 
murmured that ‘‘ a stoot gentleman would have done better 
to walk,” and to see him hold out his hand to sulky 
Dougal, and to Katrin, who had her apron at her eyes, and 
Beenie, who was sobbing freely ! They could stand there 
and cry, but she might not go down stairs lest she should 
flourish her story before the world. And why should she 
not, after all, flourish it before the world ? Is a marriage 
a thing to be hid ? When the little cart drove away, the 
pony, very fresh after his long confinement, executing- 
many gambols, Lily went back to her window, from which 
she could see them disappear under the high bank, coming 
out again lower down. The deep road was so filled up 
with snow that the moment of disappearance was a very 
short one, and then she could trace for a long time along 
the road the little dark object growing less and less, till it 
disappeared altogether. The pony’s gambols, which, 
though he was too far off to be distinctly visible, still 
showed in the meandering of his progress and sudden 
changes of pace, the Jiead of one figure showing over the 
other, the gradual obliteration in the gray of distance, kept 
all her faculties occupied. It seemed hours, though it was 
but a very little time, when Lily let her head droop on the 
arm of the old-fashioned sofa and abandoned herself to 
the long-gathering, long-restrained torrent and passion of 
tears. 

It was a heavy, dreary day. When you begin life very 
early in the morning, it ought to be for something good, 
for some natural festivity or holiday, in the light of which 
the morning goes brightening on to some climax, be it a 
happy arrival for which the moments are counted or a 
birthday party. But to begin with a parting and live the 
livelong day after it, every hour more mournful and more 
weary, is a melancholy thing. This used to be very com- 
mon in the old days, when travelling was slower, and night 
trains not invented, and night coaches not much thought 
of. It added a great deal to the miseries of a farewell : in 
the evening there is but little time before the people who 


199 


are left behind ; they have an excuse for shutting them- 
selves up, going to bed, most likely, if they are young, 
sleeping before they know, with to-morrow always a new 
day before them. But Lily had to live it all out, not 
excused by Beenie or her other faithful retainers a single 
hour or a single meal. They brought her her dinner just 
as though he had not shared it with her yesterday, and 
pressed her to eat, and made a grievance of the small 
amount she swallowed. What is the use,” Katrin said 
majestically, “ of taking all this trouble when Miss Lily 
turns her back upon it and will not eat a morsel ? ” “ Oh, 

try a wee bit. Miss Lily,” Beenie cried, adding in her ear, 
with a coaxing kindness that was insupportable : “ Do you 
think he would relish the cauld snack he’ll be getting on 
the road if he thought his bonnie leddy was not touching 
bite or sup ? ” 

“Go away, or you will drive me daft!” said Lily. 
“ He will just clear the board of every thing that’s on it 
and never think of me. Why should he, with such a fine 
appetite as he has ? Do 1 want him to starve for me ? ” 
she cried, with a laugh. But the result was another fit of 
tears. In short, Lily was as silly as any girl could be on 
the day her lover left her. She was not even as she had 
been for a moment, and was bound to be again, a young 
wife astonished and disappointed at being left behind, not 
knowing how to account for this strange, new authority 
over her which had it in its power to change the whole 
current of her life. She had never looked at Ronald in 
that light or thought of him as a power over her, a judge, 
a law-giver, whose decisions were to be supreme. She 
was astonished to find herself subdued before him now, her 
own convictions put aside ; but this was not the channel in 
which for the moment her thoughts were running. She 
was weeping for her lover, for the happiness that was over, 
for him who was away, and dreaming dreams to herself of 
how the coach might be stopped by the snow, or some acci- 
dent happen that would still bring him back. She imagined 
to herself his step on the stair and the shriek of joy with 


m 


which she would rush to welcome him. This was the 
subject of her thoughts, broken into occasionally by diver- 
gences to other points, by outbursts of astonishment, of 
disappointment, almost of resentment, but always return- 
ing as to the background and foundation of every thing. 
The other thoughts lay in waiting for her, biding their 
time. It was the dreadful loss, the blank, the void, the 
silence, that afflicted her now. Ronald gone, who for this 
week, which had been as years, as a whole life, her life, 
the real and true one, to which all the rest was only a pref- 
ace and preliminary, had been her companion, almost her- 
self ! It was of this that her heart was full. Without 
him what was Lily now ? She had been often a weary, 
angry, dull, disappointed little girl before, but there were 
always breaks in which she felt herself, as she said, her 
own woman and was herself all the Lily there was. But 
now she had merged into another being ; she was Lily no 
longer, but only a broken-off half of something different, 
something more important, all throbbing wdth enlarged 
and bigger life. This consciousness was enough for the 
girl to master during that endless, dreary, monotonous 
day. 


CHAPTER XXIII 

The next day after any thing, whether happiness or 
disaster, is different from the day on which the event took 
place. The secondary comes in to complicate and confuse 
the original question more or less, and the abstract ends 
under that compulsion. Nothing is exactl}^ as it seems, 
nor, indeed, as it is ; it takes a color from the next morn- 
ing, however opaque that morning may be. This was 
especially the case with Lily, whom so many of these 
secondary thoughts had already visited, and who had now 
to go back from the dream of that eight days in which 
every thing had been put to flight by that extraordinary 
invasion of the new and unrealized which comes to eveiy 


201 


girl with her marriage, and amid which it is so difficult to 
keep the footing of ordinary life. She was that morning, 
however, not any longer the parted lover, the mourning 
bride, but again, more or less, ‘‘her own woman,” the 
creature, full of energy and life, and thoughts and pur- 
poses of her own, who had not blindly loved or worshipped, 
but to whom, at all times, it had been apparent that 
Ronald’s way of loving, though it was to her the only way, 
was not the way she would have chosen or which she would 
have adopted herself had she been the man. A very 
different man Lily would have made, much less prudent, 
no doubt, but how decisive in the beginning of that youth- 
ful career ! how determined to have no secrets, but every 
thing as open as the day ! to involve the woman beloved in 
no devious paths, but to preserve her name and her honor 
above all dictates of worldly wisdom ! Lily would have 
had her lover vindicate her at once from her uncle’s 
tyranny. She would have had him provide the humble 
home for which she longed, without even suff'ering his 
lady to bear the ignominy of that banishment to the moor. 
And now ! with what a flame of youthful love and hope 
Lily would have had him carry off his bride, snapping his 
fingers with a Highland shout at all the powers of evil, 
who would have had no chance to touch them in their 
honest love and honorable union. Oh, if she had been the 
man ! Oh, if she could have showed him what to do ! 

And all these thoughts, intensified and increased, came 
back to Lily the day after her husband left her. She was 
not drooping and longing now for her departed lover. 
Her energies, her clear sense of what should have been, 
her objection to all that was, came back upon her like a 
flood. She sat no longer at the window gazing out uj)on 
the expanse of snow, which shrank more and more, and 
showed greater and blacker crevasses in its wide expanse 
every hour, but walked up and down the room, pausing 
now and then to poke the fire with energy, though the 
glowing peats were not adapted to that treatment, and flew 
in tiny morsels about, requiring Beenie’s swift and careful 


202 


ministrations. Lily felt, however, for one thing, that her 
position was far better now for expounding her views than 
it had ever been. A girl cannot press upon her lover the 
necessity of action. She has to wait for him to take the 
first step, to urge it upon hei*, however strongly she may 
feel the pressure of circumstances, the inexpediency of 
delay. But now she could plead her own cause, she could 
make her own claim of right, her statement of what she 
thought best. She said to herself that she had never yet 
tried this way. She had been compelled to wait for him 
to do it, but perhaps it was no wrong thing in him, per- 
haps it was only exaggerated tenderness for her, desire to 
save her from privations, or what he thought privations, 
that had prevented any bolder action, and made him think 
first of all of saving her from any discomfort. It was pos- 
sible to think that, and it was very possible to show him 
now that she cared for no discomfort, that her only desire 
was to be with him, that it was far, far better for Lily to 
meet the gaze of the w orld in her own little house, however 
small it might be, than hide in the solitude as if there 
was something about her that should be concealed. This 
thought made Lily’s countenance blaze like the glowing 
peat. Something about her that should be concealed ! a 
secret hidden away in the heart of the moor, in the midst 
of the snow, which he, going away from her, would keep 
silent about, silent as if it were a shame ! Lily threw 
herself into the chair beside her writing-table with 
impetuosity, feeling that not a moment should be lost in 
putting this im230ssible case before him and making her 
claims. She was no fair Rosamond, but his wife. A 
thing to be concealed ? Oh, no, no ! She would rather die. 

In any case she would have written him a long letter, 
seizing the first possible moment of communicating with 
him, carrying out the first instinct of her heart to continue 
the long love-interview which had made this week the 
centre of all her days. But Lily threw even more than 
this into her letter. She said more, naturally, than she 
intended to say, and brought forth a hundred arguments, 


203 


each more eloquent, more urgent than the other, to show 
cause why she should join him immediately, why she 
should not be left, nobody knowing any thing about her, 
in this Highland hermitage. The lines poured from her 
pen ; she was herself so moved by her own pleas that she 
got up once or twice and walked about to dissipate the 
impulse which she had to set out at once, to walk if it 
were needful to Edinburgh, to claim her proper place. 
And it was not till the long, glowing, fervent letter was 
written that she paused a little and asked herself if 
Ronald had really only left her behind because it was 
impossible to get a house between the terms, if his first 
business was to look out for a house, so as to have it ready 
Tor her by the next term, by Whit-Sunday, was it right to 
argue with him and upbraid him as if he intended the 
separation to go on forever ? Lily threw down her pen 
which she had dipped in fire — not the fire of anger, but of 
love just sharpened and pointed with a little indignation — 
and her countenance fell. No, if that were so, she must 
not address him in this heroic way. After all it was quite 
reasonable what he had said : it was extremely difficult to 
get a house between the terms. And perhaps he would 
not have been justified in engaging one at Michaelmas, 
before any thing was decided what to do. He could not 
have done that ; and what, then, could he do but wait till 
Whit'Sunday ? and, for a man like him, with his own ways 
of action, not, unfortunately, though she lo\^ed him, like 
Lily’s, it was perhaps natural that there should be no pre- 
mature disclosure, that as they were parted by circum- 
stances it should remain so, without taking the world into 
their confidence, or summoning Sir Robert to cast his 
niece who had deceived him out of the shelter which her 
husband did not think unbecoming for her now. Lily 
threw down her pen, making a splash of ink upon the 
table — not a large one, to spoil it, but a mark, which would 
always remind her of what she had done or had been about 
to do. 

And then there fell a pause upon her s^Dirit, and tears 


204 


were the only relief for her. To take the heroic way, to 
walk to Edinburgh through the snow, or even to think of 
doing so, to pour forth an eloquent appeal against the 
cruel fate of her isolation and concealment as if it were to 
last forever, was an easier method than to wait patiently 
until Whit-Sunday and make the best of every thing, which 
would really be the wise thing ; for what could Ronald do 
more than that which he could of course begin to do as 
soon as he arrived, to look for a house ? And how could 
it have been expected of him when every thing was so 
vague, and he did not know what might happen, to have 
provided one, months in advance, on the mere chance that 
he could persuade her into that strange marriage, and the 
minister into doing it ? It would be strange and embar- 
rassing after that scene to see the minister again, and Lily 
fell a-wondering how Ronald had persuaded him, what he 
had said. Mr. Blythe was not a very amiable man, ready 
to do what was asked of him. He made objections 
about most things and hated trouble. But Ronald could 
persuade any body ; he could wile a bird from the tree. 
And what a grand quality that was for an advocate ! and 
how proud she would be hereafter to go to the coui-t and 
hear him make his grand speeches. Perhaps now he would 
talk over some man that wanted to get rid of his house, and 
make him see that it would be better to do it now than to 
wait for the term. There was, indeed, nothing that Ronald 
could not persuade a man into if he tried. Lily felt that 
her own periods were more fiery, those eloquent sentences 
which her good sense had already condemned, but Ronald’s 
arguments were beyond reply, there was no getting the 
better of them. You might not be sure that they were 
always sound, you might feel that there was a flaw some- 
where ; but to find out what it was, or to get your answer 
properly formed, or to convict him of error was more than 
any one, certainly more than Lily, could do. 

She had risen up, and was stretching her arms above 
her head in that natural protest against the languor and 
solitude which take the form of weariness, when she saw 


205 


a dark speck approaching on the road, and rushed to the 
window with the wild hope, which she knew was quite 
Vain, that it might by some possibility be Ronald coming 
back. But it was only a rural geeg from Kinloch-Rugas 
or some other hamlet, or one of the farms in the neighbor- 
hood, creeping up the road against the wind and the 
slippery, thawing snow, with a woman in it beside the 
driver undistinguishable in her wraps. While Lily looked 
out and wondered if by any chance it might be a visitor, 
Beenie came in with a look of importance. ‘‘ Eh, Miss 
Lily, do you see who that is ? ” Robina said. 

“It is a woman, that is all I know, and keen upon her 
business to come out on such a day.” 

“ Her business ? ” said Robina. “ It’s the Manse geeg, 
and it’s Miss Eelen in it, and as far as I can tell she has 
nae business, but lust to spy out, if she can, the nakedness 
of the land.” 

“ There is no nakedness in the land, and nothing to spy 
out! ” cried Lily, with a flush. “ Have we done any thing 
to be ashamed of that we should be feared of a neighbor’s 
eye ? ” 

“ Bless me, no. Miss Lily ! ” cried Robina ; but she 
added : “ Eh, my bonnie bairn, there’s many a thing that’s 
no expedient, though it’s no wrong. I wouldna just say 
any thing to Miss Eelen if I was you. She’s maybe no to 
be trusted with a story. The minister had sent her out o’ 
the road yon evening in the Manse. Baith me and Katrin 
remarked it, for she’s his right hand and he can do noth- 
ing without her in a common way, but yon time she just 
didna appear.” 

“ Did he think I was not good enough ” Lily began 

in a flutter, but stopped immediately. “ What a silly 
creature I am ! as if there could be any thing in that. Do 
you think I have such a long tongue that I want to go 
and publish to every -body every thing that happens ? ” 

“ Oh, Miss Lily, no me ! never such a thought was in 
my head ; but it would be real natural, and you no a per- 
son to speak to except Katrin and me, that are servants 


206 


baith, though we would go through fire and water for you. 
But you see she wasna there, and if I were you, Miss 
Lily ” 

“ You happen not to be me,” cried Lily, with eyes 
blazing, glad of an opportunity to shed upon Beenie some- 
thing of the vague irritation in her heart, and since we 
are speaking of that, what do you mean, both Katrin and 
you, that were both present, in calling me Miss Lily, Miss 
Lily, as if I were a small thing in the nursery, when you 
know I am a married woman ? ” Lily cried, throwing back 
her head. 

‘‘ Oh, Miss Lily ! ” cried Robina, with a suppressed 
shriek, running to the door. She looked out with a little 
alarm, and then came back apologetically. You never 
ken who may be about. That Dougal man might have 
been passing, though he has nothing ado up the stair.” 

And what if he had been passing ? ” Lily said in high 
disdain. 

Oh, Miss Lily ! ” cried Robina, again giving the girl 
a troubled look. 

‘‘ Do you mean to say that Dougal does not know ? Do 
you mean he thinks — that man that is my servant, that lives 

in the house Oh, what can he think?” cried Lily, 

clasping her hands together in the vehemence of her horror 
and shame. 

“ He just thinks nothing at a’. He’s no a man to 
trouble any body with what he thinks. He’s keepit very 
weel in order, and if he daured to fash his head with what 
he has nae business with ! He just guesses you twa are 
troth-plighted lovers. Miss Lily, and glad he was to get 
our young maister away.” 

Lily covered her face with her hands. ‘‘ Am I a secret, 
then, a secret ! ” she cried. ‘‘ Something that’s hidden, 
just a lie, no true woman ! How dared you let me do it, 
then — you that have been with me all my days ? Why 
didye not step in and say : ‘ Lily, Lily, it’s all deceiving. 
It’s a secret, something to be hidden ! ’ Would I ever 
have bound myself to a secret, to be a man’s wife and 


207 


never to say it ? Oh, Beenie, I thought you cared, that 
you were fond of me, and me not a creature to tell me 
what I was doing ! No mother, no friend, nobody but 
you.” 

“ Miss Lily, Miss Lily, we thought it was for the best. 
Oh, we thought it was for the best, both Katrin and me ! 
For God’s sake dinna make an exhibition before Miss 
Eelen! Here she is, coming up the stair. For peety’s 
sake. Miss Lily, for a’ body’s sake, if ye have ainy consid- 
eration ” 

‘‘Go away from me, you ill woman ! ” cried Lily, stamp- 
ing her foot on the ground. She stood in the middle of 
the room, wild and flushed and indignant, while Beenie 
disappeared into the bedchamber within. Helen Blythe, 
coming up a little breathless from the spiral staircase, 
paused with astonishment to see her friend’s excited 
aspect, and the sounds of tempest in the air. 

“ Dear me ! have I come in at a wrong time ? ” Helen 
said. 

“ Oh, no,” cried Lily, with a laugh of flerce emotion, 
“ at the very best time, just to bring me back to myself. 
I’ve been having a quarrel with Beenie just for a little 
diversion. We’ve been at it hammer and tongs, calling 
each other all the bonnie names — or perhaps it was me that 
called her all the names. How do you think we could live 
out here in the quiet and the snow if we did not have a 
quarrel sometimes to keep up our hearts ? ” 

“ Lily, you are a strange lassie,” said Helen, sitting 
down by the fire and loosening her cloak. “You just say 
whatever comes into your head. Poor Beenie ! how could 
you have the heart to call her names ? She is just given 
up to ye, my dear, body and soul.” 

“ She is no better than a cheat and a deceiver! ” cried 
Lily “ She makes folk believe that she does what I tell 
her, and never opposes me, when she just sets herself 
against her mistress to do every thing I hate and nothing 
I like, as if she were a black enemy and ill-wisher instead 
of a friend I ” 


208 


This siDeech was delivered with great fervor, and empha* 
sized by the sound of a sob from the inner room. 

‘‘ Poor Beenie ! ” cried Helen with mingled amusement 
and concern, ‘‘ how is she to take all that from you, Lily ? 
But you do not mean it in your heart ? ” 

‘‘ No, I don’t mean a word of it,” cried Lily, “ and it’s 
just an old goose she is if she thinks I do ! But for all that 
she is the most exasperating woman ! I never saw any 
body like her to be faithful as all the twelve apostles, and 
yet make you dance for rage half the time.” 

A faint Oh, Miss Lily ! ” was heard from the inner 
room, and then a door was softly opened and shut, and it 
was evident that Beenie had slipped away. 

‘‘ I heard ye were down at the Manse one day that I was 
away. It’s seldom, seldom I am from home, and at that 
hour above all. But I had to see some new folk at the 
Mill, and it was a good thing I went, for there has not 
been an open day since then. And I heard ye had a visitor 
with you, Lily.” 

Lily’s heart seemed to stand still, but she made a great 
effort and mastered herself. “ Yes,” she said, “ it was 
Mr. Lumsden [many married persons call their husbands 
Mr. So-and-So] that had come in quite suddenly with the 
guisards on the last night of the year.” 

‘‘ I understand,” said Helen, with a smile ; ‘‘he wanted 
'—and I cannot blame him — to be your first foot.” 

The first person who comes into a house in the New 
Year is called the first foot in Scotland, and there are rules 
of good luck and bad dependent upon who that is. 

“ It might be so,” said Lily dreamily, “ and I think 
he was, if that was what he wanted ; but the kitchen w^as 
full of dancing and singing, the guisards making a great 
noise, as it was Hogmanay night.” 

“ That was to be expected,” said Helen, “ and I am 
glad you had a man, and a young man, and a weel-wisher, 
or I am sore mistaken, for your first foot. It brings luck 
to the New Year.” 

A “ weel-wisher ” means a lover in Scotland, just as 


209 


in Italy a girl will say, Mi viiol hene^ when slie means to 
say that some one loves her. 

He was here after, twice or thrice, and he wanted to 
thank the minister for all his kindness, and as I was at the 
market with Beenie and Katrin, and he had offered to 
drive the pony, I went too. I thought I would have seen 
you, but you were not there.” 

“ Oh, how sorry I was, Lily ! but a sight of the market 
would aye be something. It’s not like your grand ploys 
in Edinburgh, but it’s diverting too.” 

‘‘ Oh, yes,” said Lily, with great gravity, ‘‘ it is divert- 
ing too.” 

“ And you had need of something to divert you. What 
have you been doing, my bonnie wee lady, all this dread- 
ful storm ? I hope at least they have kept you warm. It 
is a dreadful thing a winter in the country when you are 
not used to it. But now the snow is over and the roads 
open : you and me must take a little comfort in each 
other, Lily. I’m too old for you, and not so cheery as I 
might be.” 

Lily, suddenly looking at her visitor, saw that Helen’s 
mild eyes were full of tears, and with one of her sudden 
impulsive movements, ffung herself down on her knees at 
her friend’s feet. ‘‘Oh, why are you not cheery, Helen ? 
you that do every thing you should do, and are so good.” 

“Oh, I’m far, far from good ! It’s little you know ! ” 
said Helen. “ My heart just turns from all the good folk, 
whiles out of a yearning I take for those that are the 
other way.” 

“You have some trouble, Helen, some real trouble ! ” 
cried Lily with a tone of compassion. “ Will you tell 
me what it is ? ” 

“ Maybe another time, maybe another time,” said 
Helen, “ for my heart’s too full to-day, and I can hear 
your poor Robina, that you have been so cruel to, coming 
up the stair, the kind creature, with a cup of tea.” 


14 


210 


CHAPTER XXIV 

Helen stayed till the first shade of the darkening stole 
over the moor, and till the minister’s man had told all the 
‘‘ clash ” of the countryside to Katrin and Dougal, and 
received but a very limited stock of information in return. 
There was, indeed, much more danger to the secret which 
now dominated and filled the house of Dalrugas like an 
actual personage from that chatter in the kitchen than 
from any thing that could have taken place upstairs. For 
the minister’s man was dimly aware that the young lady 
from Dalrugas had been in the village on that day when 
something mysterious was believed to have taken place in 
the Manse parlor; that she had been seen with a gentle- 
man, and that Katrin and Hobina had also been visible at 
the Manse. ‘‘ Ay, was I,” said Katrin ; I just took the 
minister a dizzen of my eggs. In this awfu’ weather no- 
body has an egg but me. I just warm them up and pepper 
them up till they’ve nae idea whether it’s summer or 
winter, and we lay regular a’ the year round. I never 
grudge twa-three new-laid eggs to a delicate person, and 
the minister, poor gentleman, is no that strong, I’m 
feared.” 

“He’s just as strong as a horse,” said the minister’s 
man, “ and takes his dinner as if he followed the ploo, but 
new-laid eggs are nae doubt aye acceptable. The gentle- 
man was from here that was paying him yon veesit twa 
days after the New Year ? ” 

“We have nae gentleman here,” said Katrin, stolid as 
her own cleanly scrubbed table, on which she rested her 
hand. Dougal cocked his bonnet over his right ear, but 
gave no further sign. “ There’s been a gentleman, a 
friend of Sir Robert’s, at Tam Robison’s and we had to 
give him a bed a nicht or twa on account of the snaw. 


211 


Now I think o’t, he was a friend o’ the minister’s too. 
It’s maybe him you’re meaning? but he’a back in Edin- 
burgh as far as I ken, these twa-three^ ” 

“ Weel, it would be him, or some other person,” said 
the minister’s man with an affectation of indifference ; 
but he returned to the subject again and again, endeavor- 
ing, if he had been strong enough for the role, or if he had 
been confronted by a weak enough adversary, to surprise 
her into some avowal ; but Katrin was too strong for him. 
It was with difficulty she could be got to understand what 
he meant. “ Oh, it’s aye yon same gentleman you’re 
havering about ! Eh, what would I ken about a strange 
gentleman ? The minister is no my maister nor yet 
Dougal’s. He might get a visit from Auld Nick himself 
and it would be naething to him or me.” 

“It might be much to me,” said the minister’s man, 
who was known for a “bletherin’ idiot” all over the 
parish. “ It’s just a secret, and a secret is aye worth 
siller.” 

“ Well, I wish ye may get it,” Katrin said. During 
this time she was, to tell the truth, more or less anxious 
about the demeanor of her husband. It was true that 
Dougal knew nothing unless what he might have found 
out for himself, putting two and two together. Katrin 
had great confidence in the slowness of his intellect and 
his incapacity to put together two and two. Perhaps her 
trust was too great in this incapacity, and too little in the 
dogged loyalty with which Dougal respected his own roof- 
tree and all that sheltered under it. At least the fact is 
certain that the authorized gossip of the parish carried 
very little with him to compensate him for the cold drive 
and all the miseries of the way. 

Lily took out her letter and went over it again when 
Helen had gone. She found it far too eloquent, too argu- 
mentative, too full of a foregone conclusion. Why should 
she assume that Ronald did not mean to provide a home 
for her, that there was any reason to believe in an inten- 
tion on his part of keeping their marriage a secret and 


212 


their lives apart ? All his behavior during the past week 
had been against this. How could there have been a more 
devoted lover, a husband more adoring ? She asked her- 
self what there was* in him to justify such fears, and 
answered herself : Nothing, nothing ! not a shadow upon 
his love or delight in her presence, the happiness of being 
with her, for which he had sacrificed every thing else. 
He might have spent that New Year amid all the mirth 
and holiday of his kind : in the merry crowd at home, or 
in Edinburgh, where he need never have spent an hour 
alone ; and he had preferred to be shut up all alone with 
her on the edge of a snowy wintry moor. Did that look 
as if he loved her little, as if he made small account of her 
happiness ? Oh, no, no ! It was she who was so full of 
doubts and fears, who had so little trust, who must surely 
love him less than he loved her, or such suggestions would 
never have found a place in her heart. If she already felt 
this in the evening, how much more did she feel it next 
morning, when the post brought her a little note all full of 
love, and the sweet sorrow of farewell, which Ronald had 
slipped into the post in the first halting-place beyond Dal- 
rugas ? It was written in pencil, it was but three lines, 
but after she received it Lily indignantly snatched her 
letter from the blotting-book and flung it into the fire, 
which was too good an end for such a cruel production. 
Was it possible that she had questioned the love of him 
who wrote to her like that? Was it possible that she, so 
adored, so longed for, should doubt in her heart whether 
he did not mean to conceal her like a guilty thing ? Far 
from her be such unkind, disloyal thoughts. Ronald had 
gone off into the world, as it is the man’s right and privi- 
lege and his duty to do, to provide a nest for his mate. 
If she were left solitary for a moment, that was inevitable : 
it was but the natural pause till he should have prepared 
for her, as every husband did. Instead of the indignation, 
the resentment, the bitter doubt she had felt, nothing but 
compunction was now in Lily’s mind. It was not he but 
she who was to blame. She was the unfaithful one, the 


213 


weak and wavering soul who could never hold steadily to 
her faith, but doubted the absent as soon as his back was 
turned, and was worthy of nothing except to undergo the 
fate which her feeble affection feared. She was, perhaps, 
a little high-flown in the revulsion of her feelings, as in 
the fervor of these feelings themselves. A little less 
might have been expected from Ronald, a little charity 
extended to him in his short-coming ; and certainly the 
vehemence and enthusiasm of her faith in him now was a 
little excessive. ‘‘ Yes, it is better you should call me 
Miss Lily,” she said to Robina ; it is best just to keep it 
to ourselves for a while. Mr. Lumsden thought of all that, 
though he left it entirely to me, without a word said. 
There would be so many questions asked, even Dougal and 
Helen Blythe. I would have had to summer and winter 
it, and her not very quick at the uptake. It is a long time 
till Whit-Sunday,” said Lily, with a little quiver of her 
lip. “ I will just be Miss Ramsay till then.” 

“Eh, you will aye be Miss Lily to me, whatever! ” 
Beenie cried. 

“ And I am just Miss Lily,” said her mistress, with a 
little air of dignity which was new to the girl. It was as 
if a princess had consented to that humiliation, sweetly, 
with a grace of self-abnegation which made it an honor 
the more. 

It cannot be denied, however, that it was difficult, after 
all the agitations that had passed, after the supreme excite- 
ment of the New Year, and the short, yet wonderful, union 
of their life together, to fall back upon that solitude, and 
endeavor, once more, to “ take an interest ” in the chickens 
and the ponies, and the humors of Sandy and Dougal, 
which Lily, in the beginning, had succeeded in occupying 
herself with to some extent. She did what she could now 
to rouse her own faculties, to fill her mind with harmless 
details of the practical life. How comforting it would 
have been had she but been compelled to plan and contrive 
like Katrin for all those practical necessities — how to feed 
her family, how to make the most of her provisions, how 


214 


to diet her cows aud her hens ; or like Dougal to care for 
the comfort of the beasts, and amuse himself with Rory’s 
temper, and the remarks that little snorting critic made 
upon things in general ; or even to look over the napery ” 
and see if it wanted any fine darning, as Beenie did, and 
to regulate the buttons and strings of the garments and 
darning of the stockings. Then Lily might have done 
something, trying hard to make volunteer work into 
duty, and consequently into occupation and pleasure. 
But, Beenie being there, she had no need to do what 
would have simply thrown Beenie, instead of herself, out 
of work ; and this was still more completely the case with 
Katrin, who, gladly as she would have contributed to the 
amusement in any way of her little mistress, would have 
resented, as well as been much astonished by, any interfer- 
ence with her own occupations. Lily could not do much 
more than pretend to be busy, whatever she did. She 
knitted socks for Ronald ; beguiled by Beenie, she began 
with a little enthusiasm the manufacture into household 
necessaries of a bale of linen found by Katrin among the 
stores of the establishment, but stopped soon with^hame, 
asking herself what right she had to take Sir Robert’s 
goods for that “ plenishing” of abundant linen which is 
dear to every Scotch housewife’s heart. This was a 
scruple which the women could not share. Wha should 
have it if no you ? ” cried Katrin. ‘‘ Sir Robert he has 
just presses overflowing with as nice napery as you would 
wish to see. There is plenty to set up a hoose already, 
besides what’s wanted, and never be missed, let alone 
that except yourself, my bonnie Miss Lily, there is nae 
person to use thae fine sheets. But the auld leddy’s web 
that she had woven at the weaver’s and never lived to 
make it up — wha should have it, 1 should like to know, but 
you ? ’ ’ 

Not while my uncle is the master, Katrin.” 

I’ve nothing to say against Sir Robert,” cried Katrin 
— ‘‘ he’s our maister, it’s true, and no an ill maister, just 
gude enough as maisters go — but the auld leddy was just 


215 


your ain grandmother, Miss Lily, and your plenishing 
would come out of her hands in the course of nature, and 
for wha but you would she have given all that yarn (that 
she span herself, most likely) to be made into a bonnie 
web o’ linen ? There is not a word to be said, as Robina 
will tell ye as weel as me. It’s just a law afore a’ the laws 
that a woman has her daughter’s plenishing to look to 
as soon as the bairn is born, and her bairn’s bairn with 
a’ the stronger reason, the only one that is left in the 
auld house. 

‘‘Eh, Miss Lily, that’s just as sure as death,” Beenie 
said. 

But Lily was not to be convinced. She flung the great 
web of linen, in its glossy and slippery whiteness, at the 
two anxious figures standing by her, involving them both 
in its folds. “ Take it yourselves, then,” she said, with a 
laugh. “ I am an honest lass in one way, if not in another. 
I will have none of grandmamma’s linen that belongs to 
Sir Robert and not to me.” 

And then Lily snatched her plaid from the wardrobe and 
wrapped it round her, and ran out from all their exclama- 
tions and struggles for a ramble on the moor. Oh, the 
moor was cold these February days, the frost was gone 
and every thing was running wet with moisture, the turf 
between the ling bushes yielding like bog beneath the 
foot, the long, withered stalks of the heather flinging off 
showers of water at every touch, the black cuttings gleam- 
ing, the burn running fast and full. Lily began a devious 
course between the hummocks, leaping from one spot to 
another, as she had done with Ronald, saturating herself 
with the chilly freshness, as well as with the actual moist- 
ure, of the moor ; but this was an amusement which soon 
palled upon the girl alone. She felt the exercise fatigue 
her. And the contrast between her solitude and the hand 
so ready and so eager to help her was more than she could 
bear. It was because they had to cling to each other so, 
because the mutual help was so sweet, that they had loved 
it. Lily was reluctantly obliged to confess that it was no 


216 


fun alone, and though it was a relief to walk even a little 
on the road, that was but a faint alleviation of the monot- 
ony of life. Sometimes the aspect of the mountains stole 
her from herself, or a sudden pageant of sunset, or some- 
thing of a darker drama going on, if she had but any 
interpretation of it, among those hills. Any thing going 
on, if it were but the gathering of the mist and the scent 
of the coming storm, was a relief to Lily. It was the long 
blank, not a passenger on the road, not an event in the 
day, which she could not bear. 

And then even if the walk, by dint of a sunset or some 
other occurrence, had been enlivening, there was always 
the shock of coming back, the shutting of her door against 
every invasion of life, the quiet that might have been 
comfort to her old grandmother, the old leddy who had 
spun the yarn for that web of linen, and received it home 
with triumph — was it for the plenishing of Lily unborn ? 
Lily came to have a little horror of that old leddy. She 
figured her to herself spinning, spinning, the little whirr 
of the wheel in its monotony going on for day after day. 
Lily did not think of the sons away in the world — 
Robert wherever there was fighting ; her own father 
always in trouble — that filled the old leddy ’s thoughts, 
which were spun into that yarn, and might have made 
many a pattern of mystic meaning in the cold snowy linen 
which looked so meaningless. She used to sit in the silent 
room, feeling that from some corner the old leddy’s eye 
was fixed upon her over the whirring wheel, till she could 
bear it no more. 

She went down to Kinloch-Rugas to return Helen’s 
visit, but that was not a happy experience. The old 
minister, half seen in the gloaming, seated like a large 
shadow by the fire, gave her always a thrill of alarm. She 
had hoped that he would not have treated her as a secret, 
that he would have addressed her by her new name, and 
set her at once in a true position. But he did not do this. 
He looked at her not unkindly, and spoke to her with a 
compassionate tone in his voice. But he too seemed to 


217 


accept the necessity which had been forced on her by a 
kind of unspoken command, a dilemma from which she 
could not escape. In that case the consciousness of being 
in the presence of a man who knew all, but made no sign, 
sitting there by the side of innocent Helen, who knew 
nothing, and who treated herself in all simplicity as the 
girl-Lily, the same as she had known before, was intoler- 
able ; and Lily did not go back again, much as the refuge 
of some other house to go to was wanted in her desolate 
state. You’ll come and see me, Helen ? ” “ That will 

I, my dear. You must not mind my father. He is kind, 
kind in his heart, and always a soft place for you.” I 
am not thinking that he is unkind,” said Lily. Ah, no, 
the minister was not unkind ! He was sorry for the young 
abandoned wife ; for, as he thought, the young betrayed 
woman ; and Lily, though she was not aware of this last 
aggravation, yet resented it, feeling the pity in his tone. 
And why should any one pity her, or venture to be sorry 
for her, and she, with no secret in her own honest inten- 
tion, Ronald Lumsden’s lawful wife ? 

As the days lengthened it was possible to be out of doors 
more, and Lily began to scour the country upon Rory, and 
to see, though in the doubly cold aspect of this formidable 
northern spring, many places about in which, in more 
genial weather, when “ the families ” were at home, there 
might be friends to be made. She had come home tired 
from one of these rides, and the day having been dry, had 
ventured a little on the moor, holding up her riding-skirt, 
and looking toward the western hills, where a great sun- 
set was about to be accomplished and all the unseen spec- 
tators were hastily putting on garments of gold and rose- 
color and robes of purple for the ceremony. It was not 
like a mere bit of limited sky, but a world of color, one 
hue of glory surging up after another as from some great 
treasury in the depths below, changing, combining, 
deepening, melting away in every kind of magical circle. 
Lily’s heart was not very light, but it rose instinctively 
to that wonderful display of nature. Oh, how beautiful 


218 


it was ! Oh, if there had only been some one to whom to 
say that it was beautiful ! Whether it was the glorious 
color half blinding her with excessive radiance, or the 
thought of the unshared spectacle, Lily’s eyes filled full of 
tears. Either cause was enough. At Lily ’s age, and in 
such circumstances as hers, the tears are not slow to come. 

And then in a moment she felt a touch upon her waist 
and a voice in her ear. “ Was it ever like this before, 
my Lily, my Lily ? or has it all lighted up for you and 
me, and because I am back again ? ” 

There is one compensation for those who suffer from 
great anxiety , from the misery of separation, from longing 
after things that seem unattainable. In a moment, in the 
twinkling of an eye, a flood of blessedness comes over them 
in the momentary attainment, the momentary meeting, the 
instantaneous relief. It was like a warm tide that flooded 
the heart of Lily, sweeping every fancy and every doubt 
away. She leaned her head upon his shoulder, and mur- 
mured in her rapture : “ Oh, Ronald, you’ve come back ! ” 
“Did you think I could keep away from you ? ” he 
said. ]No, no ; how could he have kept away from her ? 
He had come to claim her, as he had always intended to 
claim her, now, this moment, before the world. 


CHAPTER XXV 

He had come back ; he had come — could there be any 
doubt on that point ? — to take his wife away, to take her 
home. 

Lily, at least in her own mind, would admit of no doubt. 
She was transported in a moment from tlie depths to the 
heights. So much the more as it had been impossible 
yesterday to see any light, there was now such a flushing 
of tlie whole horizon that doubt was out of the question. 
She came toward the house with him with his arm around 
her, thinking of no precautions. Why should they con- 


219 


ceal any thing, this young pair ? The man had come to 
take his wife away. When he withdrew his arm from her 
waist and drew her hand through it, it did not, however, 
strike her that there was any thing in that. It was more 
decorous, like old married people, no longer mere lad and 
lass. She walked proudly by his side, leaning on his arm. 
Who cared if Sir Robert himself were there to see ? Lily 
had never cared much for Sir Robert, had always been 
ready to defy him and vindicate her rights over her own 
life. As it happened there was nobody but Katrin stand- 
ing at the door, looking out with her hand over her eyes. 
Katrin was very quick to make believe that she was dazzled 
by any little bit of light. 

And the lonely moor lighted up and became as paradise 
to Lily. He brought her all kinds of news, besides the 
best news of all, which was to see him there. He brought 
back her old world to her — the world where she had been 
so happy and so full of friends ; her new world, where so 
soon, in a day or two, she was to find her young com- 
panions again, and resume the former life more cordial, 
more kind, more full of friendship and every gentle affec- 
tion than ever. 

While he sat there thawing, expanding, shaking the cold 
from him, Lily, who a little while ago had been the fastidi- 
ous little maiden, courted and served, began to move about 
the room serving him, eager to get every thing for him he 
wanted, to undo his muffler, to bring him his slippers. 
Yes, she would have liked to bring him his slippers as she 
brought him, like a house-maid, on a little silver salver, 
not a cup of tea, which probably Ronald would not have 
appreciated, but something stronger, “to keep out the 
cauld,” which Katrin recommended and brought upstairs 
with her own hands to the drawing-room door. “ You are 
not going to serve me, my Lily ? ” Ronald said. “ But I 
am just going to serve you,” she cried, with a little stamp 
of her foot, “and who has a better right ? and who should 
wait on my man but me that am bound to take care of 
him ? and him come to take me away.” 


220 


Was slie afraid to say these words out loud lest they 
should break the spell ? or was he afraid that she might 
say them and he not be able to ignore them ? But betAveen 
them something was thrown down, a noise was made in 
wliich they were inaudible. I do not know if Lily had 
any little tremor that made her avoid explanation that 
evening ; at all events she had a sort of hunger to be 
happy, to enjoy it to the utmost. She laid the table with 
her own hands, shutting the door in the face of the aston» 
ished Robina, avIio hurried up as soon as she came in to 
have her share. I can do without you for all so grand 
as 5^ou think yourself,” Lily cried ; I am just going to 
wait upon my own man! ” 

‘‘ Oh, Miss Lily ! ” cried Beenie, terrified ; but she added 
to herself : What a good thing there’s naebody in the 
house ! Dougal will not be in till it’s late, and most likely 
he’ll be fou when he comes — and be nane the Aviser. And 
naething will need to be said.” I cannot tell whether 
Katrin made quite the same explanation to herself ; but 
she had taken her precautions in case that should happen 
to Dougal which happened in these days to many honest 
men on a market night without much infringement of 
their character for sobriety. It would make the explana- 
tion much simpler about the gentleman upstairs. In short, 
it would not be necessary to make any explanation at all. 

‘‘ Get out the boxes, Beenie,” said Lily, at a later hour. 

Do not make any fuss or have things lying about, for 
gentlemen, you know, cannot endure that ; but just prepare 
quietly, without any fuss.” 

Oh, Miss Lily! do you think it has come to that?” 
Beenie cried, clasping her hands with a start of joyful sur- 
prise, but with a countenance full of doubt. 

And what else should it come to ?” cried Lily, radiant. 
“Is this what folk are married for, to live one in Edin- 
burgh and one up far in the Hielands ? And Avhat should 
my man come for bat to take me home ?” 

Slie must have believed it or she Avould not have said it 
with such boldness. She gave Beenie a shake and tlien a 


221 


kiss, but cried : ‘‘Don’t make a confusion, don’t leave the 
things lying about, for that is what gentlemen cannot 
endure,” as she ran away to rejoin her husband. Robina 
stood immovable, looking after her. “Who has learnt 
her that?” she said to herself; and then she began to 
shake her head. “ They soon, soon learn what a gentleman 
canna bide ; and set him up! that he should not bide any 
thing coming from her ! ” But Beenie did not bring out 
any boxes. She concluded that at all events it would be 
time enough for that to-morrow. 

Ronald remained for three or four daj' s, during which 
time Dougal, who had carried out the judicious previsions 
of the women, and had required no explanations of any 
kind on the market night, maintained a very sullen coun- 
tenance and did not welcome the visitor, of whom he was 
suspicious without well knowing why. During this time 
there was scarcely any pretence kept up of sending Ronald 
off to the cottage of Tam Robison or in any way making 
a stranger of him. He was “ the young leddy’s freend.” 
“Young leddies had nae sic freends in my time,” said 
Dougal. “They have aye had them in my time,” said 
Katrin, “ and that cannot be far different.” He did not 
know what to say ; but he was very glum, and open to no 
blandishments on the part of the stranger. And those were 
dajT^s of anxious happiness for Lily. Ronald said nothing 
upon that one sole subject which she longed to know of. 
He sounded no note of freedom amid all the litanies he 
sang to her about her own sweetness, her beauty, her kind- 
ness. Lily grew sick of hearing her own praises. “ Oh, if 
he would but say I was an ugly, troublesome thing ! and 
then say : ‘ You must be ready, Lil}^, for we’re going home 
to-morrow ! ’ ” But Lily was very sweet to her husband ; 
this short visit was full of delight to him ; he loved to look 
at her, to take her in his arms, to know she was his. Going 
away from her was hard to bear. He would have bemoaned 
his very hard case if he had not feared that she would 
beseech him to put an end to it, to take her away with him, 
and that it need be hard no longer. That was not what he 


222 


wanted. He preferred the moments of rapture and the 
separations between. At least he preferred them to the 
loss of many other things which would be otherwise 
involved. 

One day the}^ went down to the Manse, Lily riding upon 
Rory, and her husband walking by her side. ‘‘ You can 
say I have just come over for the day,” he said. “ The 
minister of course knows very well, but 3^our friend Miss 
Helen ” 

“ Why should we tell lies about it, Ronald ? Isn’t it 
very easy, very easy to understand ? ” 

‘‘ Oh, 3^es,” he said, in any case it’s easy to understand ; 
but we might as well avoid gossip if we could.” 

“ There would be no gossip,” cried Lily, about a man 
coming to see his wife ! The only thing would be that 
folk would wonder why he did not take her home.” 

Folk would wonder about something, you may be sure ; 
but I’ve noticed that ladies think less of that than men. 
You think it is natural that people’s minds should be 
occupied with you, my bonnie Lily. And so it is ; but not 
with a common man. Maybe it is the jealousy that’s in 
human nature. I hate the chance of it, you see ! ” 

He spoke with a little vehemence, and Lily’s eyes tilled 
with tears. It was almost approaching the border of a first 
quarrel. You and me,” she said plaintively, though I 
would not have believed it, Ronald, do not always think 
the same.” 

Did we ever think the same ? No, Lily. But so long 
as we feel the same — and it’s best to be on the safe side. 
I’ll say I have come over for the day from — what do you 
call that place ? — Ardenlennie, on the other side, where I 
had to see Sir John’s man of business — which is true. And 
I found you coming out to pay your visit and came with 
you. Will that do ? ” 

Oh, it will do as well as any other — false story,” said 
Lily, “ if we are to go on telling lies all our days ! ” 

Not all our days, I hope,” he said gently. He was 
very good to her. No lover could have been more devoted 


223 


to her service, with no eyes or ears but for her. That ride, 
though Lily was not happy in the depths of her heart, 
tliough she was fretted almost beyond endurance, was yet 
sweet to her in spite of herself. ‘‘ Do you mind how we 
careered along that other day, me riding, you running,” he 
said, “ pushing at Rory behind, and pulling him before, 
and the poor little beast astonished with the weight on him 
of a long-legged chield instead of a bonnie lady ? My Lily, 
what you did for me that day ! What should I have done 
without you — at that or any other time ? ” 

‘‘ You have to do without me — not that I think I am 
much good — when you go away.” 

“ Come,” he said, you must not harp forever on this 
going away. Holloa ! ” he added immediately, retiring 
from her side with a sudden impulse as if some hand had 
pushed him away, “there is a man I know.” 

“A man you know !” she cried, startled, not so much 
by this intimation as by the start it produced in him. 

“Not a very creditable acquaintance,” he went on, with 
a short laugh, dropping Rory’s bridle and keeping, as Lily 
remarked with a pang, quite apart from her. “I thought 
lie had been at the other end of the world. He is Alick 
Duff, one of the Duffs of Blackscaur. They were ence the 
great people up here ; but the present laird, I believe, is 
never at home. You might ride on while I say a word to 
him. He’s not an acquaintance for you.” 

Rory, however, at this moment did not show any inclina- 
tion to quicken his pace, and Lily heard the greeting 
between the two men. “ Holloa, Lumsden, is that you ? ” 
and “ Duff ! I thought you were at the other end of the 
world !” 

“ Well, no, here I am — no in such clover as you,” said 
the new-comer, with a rough laugh. “ Present me to the 
lady, Ronnie — Miss Ramsay, I’m sure.” 

“ This is Mr. Alick Duff — Miss Ramsay,” Lumsden said 
with a dark color on his face. “We are going the same 
way.” 

“ And I’m going the contrary road — I’m sorry,” said the 


224 


stranger, who was a heavy man, older and far less well 
looking than Ronald. “ I’m going to have a look at the 
old place and see if they’ll have any thing to say to me 
there. Then I’m off again to the ends of the world, as you 
say ; and the further the better,” he added, again with a 
harsh laugh. Rory by this time had moved on, and Lily, 
though she heard the men’s voices almost loud on the still 
air, did not make out what they said. In a few moments 
Ronald rejoined her almost out of breath. 

‘‘That’s the black sheep of the family,” he said; “not 
likely he’ll get much of a reception at home, even if there’s 
any body there. The only thing that could be wished, for 
all belonging to him, is that he should never be heard of 
more.” 

“He is a dreadful-looking man,” said Lily, with a 
shudder, “ and seems to laugh at every thing, and looks as 
if he might do any terrible thing.” 

“You should ask Helen Blythe about that,” Ronald said. 
He was still keeping at a certain distance, the other way- 
farer being still in sight. Ronald did not know that, when 
at the sudden turn of the next corner he resumed his place 
at Rory’s bridle, it was almost in the heart of his wife 
to have pushed him back with her hands. This incident 
stopped the question about Helen Blythe which was trem- 
bling on Lily’s lips. What could he know about Helen 
Blythe, and what could she have to do with this dreadful 
man ? 

The minister sat in his big chair as usual, immovable, 
by the fire, witli a keen glance at Ronald and another at 
Lily as they came in. Lily was a little flushed with the 
fresh air and exercise, and with the associations of the 
place, and the sense that to one person here at least her 
secret was known. She would not take upon herself a 
syllable of the explanation which Ronald hastened to give 
fluently over her shoulder. “ I am up at Ardenlennie, on 
business with Sir John’s factor,” he said, “ and I was so 
fortunate as to find Miss Ramsay just setting out on a visit 
to you, so I thought I might come too.” 


225 


‘‘ You’re welcome,” said the minister curtly. Come in 
to the fire, my dear young lady, and take a seat here.” 

“ Eh, Lily, my dear,” cried Helen, I am feared you are 
not well, for you’ve turned white in a moment after that 
bonnie color you had ! ” Helen herself was not looking 
well. There was a little redness in her eyes, as if she had 
been crying, and her cheeks were still paler than Lily’s. 
She was interrupted by her father’s peremptory voice : 

If you would but let your friends be ! Sit doAvn here 
and rest. Ho doubt ye’re both tired and cold. And, Eelen, 
if you had any sense, you would get the tea.” 

That’s one word for you, Lily, and two for himself,” 
said Helen, with a smile. He’s as fond of his tea as if 
he were an old woman. I will just tell Marget and come 
back in a moment.” Perhaps she was glad to be out of 
sight, even for that moment ; but poor Lily, wholly occu- 
pied with her own concerns, and wondering whether Helen 
knew any thing, or how much she knew, or what she would 
think of this dreadful deception, had no leisure in her mind 
to think of any possible troubles of Helen’s own. 

Did you meet any — waif characters on the road ? ” the 
minister said, with a bitter pause before the last words to 
give emphasis. It was said loud enough for Helen to hear. 

‘‘We met — Alick Duff; I thought he was in Australia 
or America. He is not precisely what one would call a — 
fine character,” Lumsden said. 

“ There are not very many of them about,” said the old 
man ; “ some take one turn and some another ; but them 
that stick to the straight road are few, as was said on a — 
more important occasion. And how will you be liking 
your stay in Dalrugas, Miss Lily, after all the dafling of 
the Hew Year is over ? A visitor for a day or so maybe 
makes it bearable ; but it’s lonely for the like of you.” 

“ Oh,” cried Lily, involuntarily putting her hands to- 
gether, “ I get very tired of it ! But I think,” she added, 
with a confidence she was far from feeling, “ that I shall 
not be very long there now.” 

“ Oh ! ye think ye will not be very long there ?” he re- 
15 


226 


peated after her. There was not very great assurance or 
encouragement in his voice. 

“ Well,” said Helen, who had come back, I understand 
it’s dull for you ; but here is one person that will be very 
sorry, Lily. It will, maybe, be better for you, but the 
whole countryside will miss you ; for many a one takes 
pleasure to see you pass — you and the powny — that never 
has said a word to you. She is just a public benefit,” said 
the minister’s daughter, with her bonnie face.” 

A silence ensued, nobody said a word, and it became 
visible that Helen’s cheeks were a little glazed, as if by 
sudden application of cold water to wash away certain 
stains from her eyes. She had seated herself for a moment 
where all the light from the window fell on her, but rest- 
lessly jumped up again and began to remove her work and 
some books from the table in preparation for tea. ‘‘ And 
when are you leaving this neighborhood, Mr. Lumsden ? 
I hope you have some time to stay.” 

Alas ! I am going to-morrow. A man who has his 
work to do has little leisure,” said Ronald. ‘‘We must 
keep our noses to the grindstone whatever happens. La- 
dies are better off.” 

“ Do you think we are better off,” said Helen, with a 
sigh, “ to bide at home whatever happens, and wait for 
news that maybe never comes ? to see the others go awa}^, 
and never be able to follow them, except with the longings 

of our hearts? I have had two brothers ’’she said, 

with a sudden little catch in her throat. 

“ Eelen,” said the minister, “ I never knew you for a 
hypocrite, whatever you were. It is none of your 
brothers ” 

“ Oh, father, how can you ken ? Do I wear my heart 
on my sleeve that you can tell what’s in it ? You 
never thought much about them yourself, and how could 
you know what was in another’s heart ? But it’s not 
for me to speak. I have aye ni}^ duty. It’s just Mr. 
Lumsden’s notion that it’s a fine thing for us to sit quiet 
at home and endure all things and never hear.” 


227 


Well, here is your tea at all events,” said Mr. Blythe, 
“ and I see James Douglas passing the window to get a 
cup. When there’s nothing to do in an afternoon and 
every thing low, as it is at that period in the day, there is 
a great diversion in tea. In fact,” he added, “ the best of 
meals is just the diversion they make. You are shaken out 
of yourself. Ye say your grace and ye carve your chuckle, 
or even a sheep’s head on occasion, and your thoughts are 
taken clean away from the channel, maybe a troublesome 
one, that they are in. Still better is a cup of tea. Come 
ben, come ben, Mr. Douglas ; there’s plenty of room for 
you. We were just thinking, Eelen and me, that it is a 
long time since you have been here.” 

A pleasant light shone in the young minister’s face. 

If I thought I could make myself missed, I would have 
the heart to stay away longer still,” he said, but then I 
think that out of sight is often out of mind.” 

It was pathetic to observe how he sought the eyes of 
Helen, and how he contrived to put his chair next hers at 
the table, round which they all sat. Helen took but little 
notice of the gentle young man ; she set down his cup 
before him with a precipitation that was almost rude, and 
turned away to Lily, with whom she talked in an under- 
tone. What about ? Neither one nor the other knew. 
Yet neither one nor the other had any perception of what 
was in her neighbor’s bosom. Helen’s trouble to her filled 
all the world. It was greater than any thing else she knew; 
the air tingled with it ; the very horizon could scarcely 
contain it. Lily, a child, with all the world smiling upon 
her ! — what could there be in her lot to approach the 
greatness of the pain which Helen had to bear ? She 
was half angry with the girl for making a fuss about 
being dull, as if that mattered ; or seeing her sweetheart 
only by intervals, which was all, she thought, that Lily 
had to complain of. The little spoiled child ! but what 
a real heartbreak was, Helen knew. 


228 


CHAPTER XXVI 

Did you mean that, Ronald — that you are really 
going away to-morrow ? ” 

Indeed and alas, I meant it, Lily. It is the middle of 
the session. How could I stay longer? It was, as I said 
to the minister — though you never more than half believe 
what I say — a real piece of business with Sir John’s factor 
at Ardenlennie that gave me the occasion of spending 
a few days with my Lily, which I seized upon without 
giving you any warning, as you know.” 

“ And me that thought you could not do without me 
one day longer, and were coming hurrying to bring your 
wife home ! ” 

My darling ! ” said Ronald, with no lack of ardor on 
his part. “ But then my bonnie Lily has always sense to 
know that the longing of the heart changes nothing, and 
that it is no more the term in March than it is in January. 
Where could I find a place to put you now, or till Whit- 
Sunday comes ? ” 

Was it true ? Oh, yes ; it was true. In Scotland you 
do not find an empty house and go into it whenever you 
want to — especially not in the Scotland of those days. 
You have to wait for the term, which is the legitimate 
time. Nevertheless Lily was very sure that, if she were 
now in Edinburgh looking for a place to establish her nest 
in, she would find it ; but perhaps a man has not the time, 
perhaps he cannot take the trouble, going upstairs and 
down stairs looking at all kinds of unlikely places. This, 
Lily felt sure, was another of the things that gentlemen 
could not abide. 

‘‘ We must make the best of yon, then, while we have 
you,” she said, drawing her chair to the side of the fire 


229 


after their dinner together. It was cold at night, though 
the hardy folk of the North were content to believe that 
spring was coming, and that there was a different “ feel ” 
in the air. The wind was sweeping over the moor as keen 
as a knife, bending the gray bushes of the ling and spare 
rowan-trees that cowered before it like human travellers 
caught in the cutting breeze. There was a cold moon 
shining fitfully, with frightened, swift-flying glimpses 
from among the clouds which flew over her face. Colder 
than the depth of winter outside, but within, with the 
firelight and lamplight, and Lily making the best of her 
husband’s flying visit, very bright and very warm. 

“ I will just look for the next term, Ronald, and pack up 
all my things and be ready, so that if you came suddenly, 

as you did the other day ” 

‘‘ Do you bid me, then,” he said, not to come till Whit- 
Sunday ? which is a long time to be without a sight of 
my Lily. If I should have another chance like this of 

getting a day or two — which is better than nothing ” 

‘‘ Oh, no, do not miss the day or two,” cried Lily ; “ how 
could you think I meant that ? But I’ll look for the term- 
time, like the maids when they’re changing their places. 
It’s more than that to me, for it will be the first home I 
have ever had. Uncle Robert’s house was never a home — 
there was no woman in it.” 

Nor will there be any woman, Lily ” 

“ I will be the woman,” she cried, with a playful blow 
on his shoulder ; “ it is me that will make it home. And 
you will be the man. And if any stranger comes into it — 
not to say a poor, motherless bairn like what I was — their 
hearts will sing for pleasure ; for there will be one for 
kindness and warmness, and one for protecting and caring, 
and that will make it home. Uncle Robert was but one, 
and not one that was caring. If you were there, he just 
let you be. ‘ Oh,’ he would say, ‘ you are here ! ’ as if it 
was a surprise. Do you wonder that I hunger and thirst 
for my own home, Ronald, when I never had in my life 
any thing but that ?” 


280 


It will come in its time, my Lily,” he said, holding her 
close to him, with her hands in his. 

‘^Ay, but you mind what Shakespeare says : ‘While the 
grass grows ’ ” 

“ If the proverb was musty then,” said Ronald, with a 
laugh, “ it’s mustier now.” 

“ So it is ; but as true as ever. And I weary for it, I 
weary for it ! ” cried the girl. “ However, sit you there, 
and me here ; and we’ll think it is our own house — that 
you will have come in, and you will have had your dinner, 
and you will be telling me every thing that has passed in 
the day.” 

“ What, all the pleas before the Fifteen, and old Watty’s 
speeches, and the jokes of Johnny Law, and the wiles 
of ” 

“ Every one of them ! When you are in a profession, 
you should know every thing about it. If you were a — 
tailor, say, who would make your fine buttonholes, and the 
braiding of the grand waistcoats, but jour wife ? Or a— 
school-master it would be me to look after the exercises ; 
and wherefore not an advocate’s wife to know all about 
the Parliament House, and how to conduct a case if there 
should be occasion ? ” 

“ So that you might go down to the court instead of me, 
and plead for me if I had a headache,” said Ronald, laugh- 
ing. “It would be grand for my clients, Lily, for I’ll 
answer for it, with Symington on the bench, and Hoodie- 
craw and the two Elders, you would gain every plea.” 

“ That’s while I am young and ” said Lily, with a little 

toss of her head. She was saucy and gay and full of 
malice, as he had never seen her, for this was not much 
Lily’s way. “ I did not say I would plead ; but I would 
have to know. Every thing you would have to tell me, as 
well as the jokes of the old lords.” 

“ Well,” said Ronald, “ I might do that, and you would 
take no harm, for you would not understand them, my 
Lily. But they all like a bonnie lass, and you would win 
every plea. I’ll tell you all the stories, Lily, and there are 


231 


plenty of them. The plainstanes of the Parliament House 
know more human trouble and vice than any other place in 
Edinburgh. I’ll tell you ” 

‘‘ Oh, not the wicked things ! ” cried Lily, clasping her 
hands, ‘‘ for how could we help those that suffer by them ? 
or what could that have to do with you and me?” 

If you leave out the wicked things, there would be little 
to do,” said Ronald, “ for the courts of law.” 

‘‘ But we will leave them out ! ” cried Lily. All our 
cases shall be about mistakes, or something that comes 
from not understanding ; so that as soon as you put it to 
them very clear they will see the right and own it and go 
back to the just way. For there is nobody that would not 
rather be in the right than in the wrong if they knew, and 
that is my principle ; things are so twisted in and out it’s 
hard to understand ; and bad advice and thinking too 
much of himself make a man do a sudden thing without 
thinking, till he finds that it is wrong. And then when he 
sees, he is sorry and puts it back.” 

“If it were so easy as all that,^Lily, it would be new 
heavens and a new earth.” 

“Well, we’ll try,” said Lily gayly. She was so gay, she 
was so full of quips and cranks, so ready with amusing 
turns of speech and audacious propositions, that Ronald 
found her a new Lily, full of brightness and fun and novel, 
ridiculous suggestions and high-flown notions, which she 
was ready herself to laugh at as high-flown, yet taking his 
sober thoughts to pieces and turning them upside down. 
What would it be, indeed, to carry her away with him, to 
have her always there, turning every little misfortune into 
fun and laughter, making every misadventure a source of 
amusement instead of trouble ! A gleam of light rose in 
his eyes, and then he shook his head slightly to himself and 
sighed. The shake of the head and the sigh were when 
Lily’s back was turned. He dared not let her see them, 
divine them, answer them with a hundred quick-flashing 
arguments. She had an answer for every thing, he knew. 
She cared nothing for the things that were, after all, the 


232 


chief things to care for — money, progress in the world, that 
sound foundation in life without which no man could make 
sure of rising to the head of his profession. Some did 
it without doubt. There was Lord Pleasaimce, that had 
fought his way to the bench, marrying a wife and begin- 
ning in a garret, as Lily wished ; now he thought of it, 
she was something like Lily, the judge’s wife, though fat 
now and roundabout. They had even been Lord Advocate 
in their time, and gone to London (with such a couple, even 
Ronald felt instinctively, you don’t say he, but they) and 
struggled through somehow ; but always poor, always 
poor ! They did not seem to mind ; but then Ronald knew 
that he would always mind. They had no fortunes for 
their daughters nor to put out their sons well in the world. 
He shook his head again as he rejected once more that 
possibility which for a moment, only for a moment, had 
caught and almost beguiled him. Lily had gone out of the 
room, but, coming back, caught that last shake of his head. 

And what is that for ? ” she said. You will have been 
thinking that Lily is ^ood for very little, that she could 
not keep the house and make the meat as she thinks, but 
would look to be served herself, hand and foot, as she is 
here.” 

“ Not that — but still my Lily has always been served 
hand and foot. There is Beenie, without whom we cannot 
budge a step ” 

‘‘No,” said Lily gravely, “without Beenie I could not 
budge a step — not because Beenie is my maid, and I need 
her to serve me, but because it would break her heart.” 

“My love, poor folk as we shall be cannot afford to 
think of breaking hearts.” 

“I will break jmurs rather! ” cried Lilj^, with a little 
stamp of her foot. “I will give ye ill dinners and a house 
that is never redd up, and keep Beenie like a lady in the 
best room and give her all the good things.” 

“Tliat is just what I say,” said Ronald ; “ we will have a 
train — all the old servants that cannot endure their lives 
without Miss Lily, perhaps Katrin and Dougal, too.” 


233 


Lily stood looking at him for a moment, with her eyes 
enlarged and her face pale. Is it in fun, or in earnest ? ” 
she said, with a little gasp. 

‘‘Oh, in fun, in fun,” he said hastily, “though consider- 
ing how they have fulfilled their duty to Sir Robert, 
it would not be strange if he turned them out of his 
doors — and whom, then, could they turn to but you and 
me ? ” 

“ It is not for you and me to blame them,” said Lily, 
still under the impression of what he had said, “ and this 
is not the kind of fun that is good fun. But it is true, 
after all, though I never thought of that before. Katrin 
is kind, but she has, perhaps, not been quite as true to 
Uncle Robert as to me ; but Dougal, he knows nothing. 
Dougal has never known any thing ; he has never meant 
to desert Uncle Robert. Ronald,” cried Lil}^, with sudden 
affright, “we have all been cheating Uncle Robert! 
This is what we have done, and nothing else, since you 
first came here.” 

“ I am well aware of it, Lily,” said Ronald, with a laugh, 
“ and for my part I am quite agreed to go on cheating 
Uncle Robert for as long as you please.” 

“It does not please me!” she said; “I would like to 
cheat nobody. It is a new thing to me — I did not think of 
that. Oh, Ronald, take me away ! I laugh and I chatter, 
but my heart’s breaking. We are cheating every body — 
not Uncle Robert only, but Helen Blythe and every 
creature that knows me. What do I care how poor we 
are, or if I have to work for my living ? I will work, oh, 
with a good heart ! but take me away, take me away ! ” 

Ronald held her hands in his and steadied her against 
her will. He had foreseen such an outburst, as well as the 
other manifestations of her agitated and disturbed life. 
He was ready to allow even that it was no wonder she 
became excited by times, that she had been more patient 
than he could have hoped. He was himself very cool, and 
could afford to be moderate and humor her. He held her 
hands in his, and restrained the violence of her feelings by 


234 


that steady clasp. “ My Lily, my Lily! ” he said. The girl 
yielded to that restraining influence in spite of herself. 
She could almost have struck him in the vehemence of 
her passion and in the intolerable sensation of this sharp 
light upon the situation altogether ; but the cool touch of 
his hands, his firm hold, his soothing voice, subdued her. 
The question between two people at such a crisis is almost 
entirely the question which is stronger, and on this occa- 
sion Ronald was certainly the stronger. When Lily’s 
passion ended in the natural flood of tears, she shed them 
on his shoulder, encircled by his arm, all her resistance 
quenched. And he was very kind to her ; no one could 
have consoled her more lovingly, or more tenderly soothed 
the nervous and excited feelings which had got beyond 
her control. He was master of the situation, and felt it, 
but used his power in the most gentle way. And Lily 
said not a word more — what was there to be said ? She 
had put herself in the wrong by her passion and by her 
tears. This was not the calm reason with which a woman 
ought to discuss the beginning of her life — with which, 
she said to herself, a man expected his wife to consider 
and discuss these affairs. She had neither been calm nor 
reasonable. She had been passionate, excited, perhaps 
hysterical. Lily was deeply ashamed of herself. She 
was humble toward him who must, she thought, be dis- 
appointed in her, and find her like the women in books, all 
folly and excitement, instead of a creature able to take all 
the circumstances into consideration. Nothing could have 
subdued her spirits like that sense of being in the wrong. 

Later in the evening she endeavored to make up for her 
foolishness by returning to the mood of gayety with which 
she began the evening. She gave Ronald a little sketch of 
the humors of Rory, and the respect in which Dougal held 
that small and fiery personage. She told him about Katrin’s 
cows and her chickens, and the amusement which these 
living creatures had given during the long winter days to 
the little family at Dalrugas. 

“But spring is coming,” he said. 


235 


Oh, yes ; spring is coming ; the moor will soon be 
dry enough for walking, and many a ramble I will have. 
I am beginning,” said Lily, to grow very fond of the 
moor. You see, it is all we have. It’s cross and market 
and college and court and all together to me. In the morn- 
ing the bees will be busy among the whins — there is 
always a bud somewhere on a whin bush — and full of 
honey as they can hold ; and then in the evening there is 
the sunset, and the hills all standing out against the west, 
with their old purple cloaks around them. What with 
the barnyard and what with the moor, there’s no want of 
diversion here.” 

“My bonnie Lily,” he cried in sudden compunction, 
“not much diversion for the like of you!” 

“ What do you call the like of me ? I am very well off. 
I have neighbors and all. There is Helen Blythe, poor 
thing, she is not so well off. The minister is a handful ; 
he holds her night and day. And who was yon glum man, 
Ronald, and what had he to do with her ? Her eyes were 
red, and she had been crying ; and I am sure it was some- 
thing about that man.” 

“ Alick Duff ? Honsense, Lily ! He is a black sheep, 
if ever there was one. That was all a foolish story, we’ll 
suppose. A good little thing like the minister’s daughter 
should never be thrown away on him.” 

“Perhaps she is a good little thing. We are all good 
little things till we show ourselves different. But her eyes 
were red and her cheeks were pale. I must see if I can 
comfort her,” said Lily half to herself. “ And now, sir, 
if you are going away to-morrow, you should go to your 
bed, for you’ll have a weary day.” 

“Yes, I shall have a weary day ; but I could bear that 
and more to see my Lily,” Ronald said. 

“Well, if you care for her at all, you would need to do 
that, for she must either be there or here,” Lily said. 
“ It’s a pity I’m solid, that I cannot fly away like the birds, 
and tap at your window as the lad}" does in the ballad. 
What ballad ? I don’t remember. Perhaps it was after 


236 


she was dead. And does Mrs. Buchanan always make 
you comfortable and cook as well as Katrin ? Oh, Katrin 
is very good for some things, though you think her an ill 
housekeeper for Uncle Robert. But never mind that. 
Tell me about Luckie Buchanan. I will wager you a 
silver bawbee, as Beenie saj^s, that she does not send you 
up your bird as good as we do here.” 

‘‘Nothing is so good as it is here. You take me up too 
quick, Lily.” 

“ Me take you up quick ? I do nothing but try to please 
you. But I know how it is, Ronald. You think shame of 
Luckie Buchanan. She burns your bird, and she does 
your chop in the frying-pan, and her kettle is not half 
boiled. Young men are very badly treated in their 
lodgings. I know very well. Uncle Robert’s men that 
came to see him were always complaining, and they were 
old men that could make their curries themselves and 
drive womenfolk desperate, whereas you’re only young 
and would think shame to look as if you cared. I wonder 
if she brushes your clothes right, and gives you nice 
burnished boots, as you like them to be,” said Lily, with 
a critical look at the sleeve of his coat, which she was 
smoothing down with her hand. 

“ You will make me think myself a terrible being, taken 
up with my own wants,” he said in a vexed tone. 

“ It is me that am taken up with your wants,” she said, 
“ and what more right than that — a man’s wife ! What is 
the good of her but to look after her man ! And when 
I cannot do it for failure of circumstances, not good will, 
then I must just ask and plague you till you tell me there’s 
nothing more for me to do — till the term comes, and I go 
home to my place,” cried Lily, with a laugh, but with two 
tears, which she turned away her head that he might not 
see. “It’s my first place!” she cried. “You cannot 
wonder I am excited about it, Ronald ; and I hope I will 
give you satisfaction — Beenie and me ! ” 

Next morning Lily got up without, as appeared, any 
cloud on her face, and gave him his breakfast, and saw to 


237 


the packing of his bag, and that his big coat was well 
strapped on to Sandy’s shoulders, who was to walk into 
the town with him and carry his small belongings. ‘‘You 
will not want it walking, but you will want it in the 
coach,” she said, “ and be sure you keep yourself warm, 
for, though it’s March, the wind is terrible cold over the 
moor ; and here is a scarf to put round your neck for the 
night journey. It will keep you warm, and it will mind 
you of me.” 

“Do I want that to mind me of my Lily?” he said 
reproachfully. 

“No, after I have been giving you such a taste of my 
humors, and you know I am not just the good thing you 
thought. But you might be more grateful for my bonnie 
scarf that I took out of the lavender to give you to wrap 
round your throat at night! And it is a very bonnie scarf,” 
said Lily ; “look at the flowers worked upon it, the same 
on both sides, and as soft as a dove’s feathers that are of 
silver. You will put it round your neck and say Lily gave 
me this ; and then at Whit-Sunday, Avhen I take up my 
j)lace, I will find it again, laid away in some drawer, and I 
will take it back, and it will belong then both to you and 
me.” 

“ That is a bargain,” he said, more moved by the parting 
than he had ever been ; but Lily went with him to the head 
of the stairs, and there stood looking after him from the 
staircase windoAv, to keep up some sort of transparent 
fiction for Dougal’s sake, with her eyes shining and a smile 
upon her mouth. She was resolved that this was how he 
should see her when he went away. There should be no 
more breakings down. She would importune him no more. 
She would not shed a tear. When he turned round to 
wave his hand before he disappeared under the bank,* she 
was still smiling and calm. It was, perhaps, a little star- 
tling to Ronald, who had never seen her so reasonable 
before — and reasonableness, though so desirable, is some- 
times a little alarming too. 


238 


CHAPTER XXVII 

When she was sure that the travellers were out of sight, 
Lily flew down the spiral stairs, snatched her plaid from 
where it hung as she passed, and rushed out to the only 
shelter and refuge she had — the loneliness and silence of 
the moor. She had to push through between the two 
women, who would so fain have stopped her to administer 
their consolation and caresses, but whom, in her impatience, 
she could not tolerate, shaking her head as they called after 
her to put on her plaid and that she would get her death 
of cold. It was March and a beautiful morning, the air 
almost soft in the broad beaming of the sun, and the moist- 
ure, which lay heavy on the moss-green turf and ran and 
sparkled in little pools and currents everywhere ; hut the 
breeze was keen and cold, and blew upon her with a sharp 
and salutary chill, cooling her heated cheeks. Lily sprang 
over the great bushes of the ling, which, bowed for a 
moment by her passage, flung back upon her a shower of 
dew-drops as they recovered their straightness, and the 
whins caught at the plaid on her arm as she brushed past ; 
but she took no notice of these impediments, nor of the 
wetness under her feet, nor the chill of the air upon her 
uncovered head, and shoulders clothed only in her indoor 
dress. She paused upon a little green hillock slightly 
rising over the long level, which was a favorite point of 
vision, and from which, as she had often found, the 
furthest view was possible of any thing within the horizon 
of this little world. But it was not to see that little speck 
on the road, which was Ronald, that Lily had made this 
rush into the heart of the moor. It was for the utter soli- 
tude, the silence which enclosed and surrounded her, the 
separation from every thing that could intrude upon that 
little speck of herself, so insigniflcant in the great fresh 


239 


shining world, yet so much more living in her trouble than 
all the mountains and tlie moors. Lily sank down on the 
mossy green and covered her face with her hands. She 
had shed passionate tears on her husband’s shoulder last 
night, but these were different which forced their way 
now without any thing to restrain them. They were not 
mere tears of a parting, which, after all, was no wonderful 
thing. He would come again. Lily had no fear that he 
would come again. She had no doubt of his love, no 
thought that he might grow cold to her. Of the two it 
was Ronald who was the warmer lover, holding her in 
perfect admiration as well as in all the fondness of a young 
husband, which was not exactly what could be said on her 
side. But his love was of a different kind, as perhaps a 
man’s always is. He did not want all that she did in their 
marriage. A little house of their own, wherever it was — a 
home, a known and certain place : was it the woman who 
thought of this rather than the man ? It gave her a pang 
even to think that it might perhaps be so, or at least that 
Ronald did not care for what she might suffer in this 
respect. He might be content with casual visits, but what 
she wanted was her garret, her honest name, and honor 
and truth. 

And then Whit-Sunday, Whit-Sunday, the term when 
people did their flitting, and the maids went to their new 
places ! Oh, happy, honest prose that had nothing to do, 
Lily thought, with romance or poetry. Would it come — in 
two months, not much more — and make an end of all this ? or 
would it never come ? Poor Lily’s heart was so wrung out 
of its right place that she lost her confidence even in the 
term ; she could scarcely think of any thing in earth or 
heaven, she who had once been so confident, of which she 
could now think that there was no fear. 

By this time the cold had begun to creep to Lily’s heart, 
her fever of excitement having found vent, and she was 
glad to wrap herself closely in her plaid, putting it over 
her head and gathering the soft folds round her tliroat. 
She put back the hair which the cold breeze and the dis- 


240 


order of her weeping had brought about her face, smooth- 
ing it back under the tartan screen, the soft warm folds that 
gave a little color to her pale face. Oh, if she could have 
had a plaid, but that of Ronald’s tartan, to wrap about her 
heart, the chilled spirit and soul that had no warmth of 
covering ! But that must not be thought of now, when 
Lily’s business was to go back to her dreary home, to meet 
the eyes that would be fixed upon her, to bear her burden 
worthily, and to betray to no one, even her most confi- 
dential companion, the doubts and terrors that were in her 
own heart. 

As she came out upon the road, having made a long 
round of the moor to give herself more time, Lily perceived 
two figures in front of her, whom she did not at once 
recognize ; but after a moment or two her attention was 
attracted by the voice of the man, who spoke loudly, and 
by something in the attitude of the little figure walking 
by his side, and replying sometimes in an inaudible mono- 
syllable, sometimes by a deprecating gesture only, to his 
vehement words. Was it Helen Blythe who was here so 
far from home by the side of a man who spoke to her 
almost roughly, certainly not as so gentle a creature ought 
ever to have been spoken to ? It was some time before 
Lily’s faculties were sufficiently roused to hear what he 
was saying, or at least to discover that she could hear if 
she gave her attention ; when, however, a sudden ‘‘If 
you had ever loved me, Helen ! ” caught her ear, Lily 
cried out in alarm: “Oh, whisht, whisht! Whoever 
you are, I am coming behind you and I can hear what 
you say.” 

The man turned round almost with rage, showing her 
the dark and clouded face of the stranger whom she had 
met the day before with Ronald, and who was the cause, 
as she had divined, of Helen’s sad eyes. “ Confound you! ” 
he cried in his passion, “ can ye not pass on, and leave the 
road free to folk going about their own business ?” These 
words came out with a rush, and then he paused and red- 
dened, and took off his hat. “ Miss Ramsay ! ” he said, 


241 


‘‘ I beg your pardon,” pla«cing himself hastily between her 
and his companion. 

“ I neither want to see nor hear,” cried Lily. Let me 
pass ; you need have no fear of me.” 

At the voice Helen came quietly out of his shadow. 

You need not hide me from Lily,” she said, for Lily is 
my dear friend. I’ve walked far, far from home, Lily, with 
one tliat — one that — I may never see again,” she said, turn- 
ing a pathetic look upon the man by her side. “ He 
blames me now, and perhaps I am to be blamed. But to 
think it is, maybe, the last time, as he is telling me, breaks 
my heart. Lily, will you take us in, if it was only for half- 
an-hour ? I feel as if I could not go on another step, for 
my heart fails me as well as my feet.” 

“ You never told me you were wearied, Helen! ” he cried 
in a tone of fierce penitence. “ How was I to know ? I 
could have carried you like a feather.” 

She shook her head. You could carry more weight 
than me, Alick, but as soon Schiehallion as me. And I 
was not wearied till I saw rest at hand.” 

“Miss Ramsay,” he said, “you know what she and I are 
to each other.” 

“ I know nothing,” cried Lily, “ and you need not tell 
me, for what Helen does is always right ; but come in and 
welcome, and have your talk out in peace. Never mind to 
exjDlain to me — I scarcely know your name.” 

“ It is, alas, no credit, or rather I am no credit to a good 
name that has been well kent on this countryside ; but we 
are old, old friends, Helen Blythe and me. She should 
have been my wife. Miss Ramsay, though you might not 
think it, nearly ten long years ago. If she had kept her 
promise, they would never have called me wild Alick Duff, 
and the black sheep of the family, as they do now. This 
is the third time I’ve come back to bid her keep her word; 
for I have her word, rough and careless as you may think 
me. Each time I’m less worth taking than I was the time 
before, and I’m not- going to risk it any more. When 
she drops me this time, I will just go to the devil, 
16 


242 


which is the easiest way, and trouble nobody more about 
me.” 

“And why should you go to the devil?” said Lily, “for 
that is what nobody except your own self can make you do.” 

“ Oh, do not hearken to him, Lily ; let us come in for 
half-an-hour, for neitlier will my feet carry me nor will 
my heart hold me up if there is more.” 

Lily made her guests enter before her when they reached 
the door of Dalrugas ; but lingering behind as Helen made 
her way slowly with her tired steps up the spiral stairs, 
caught Duff by the sleeve and spoke in his ear : “Do you 
not think shame of yourself to break her heart, a little 
thing like that, with putting the weight of your ill deeds 
upon her, and you a big strong man ? ” 

“Me — think shame ! ” he said, with a low laugh. 

“ I would tliink shame,” cried Lily vehemently, all her 
hot blood surging up in her veins, “ to lay the burden of a 
finger’s weight upon her, and her not a half or a quarter 
so big as me ! ” 

This shaiqD, indignant whisper Helen heard as a murmur 
behind her while she went up the stairs. She turned round 
when she reached the drawing-room, meeting the others as 
they appeared after her. “ And what were you two saying 
to each other ? ” she asked, with a tremulous smile. 

“I am going,” said Lily, “to leave you to yourselves ; 
and when you have had your talk out, you will come down 
to me to have something to eat ; and then we will think, 
Helen, how we are to get you home.” 

“ You are coming in here, Lily. Him and me we have 
said all there is to be said. And he has told you what 
there is between us, as perbaj^s I would never have had the 
courage to do. Come and tell him over again, Lily, you 
that are a young lass and have known no trouble — tell 
him what a woman can do and cannot do, for he will not 
believe me.” 

“How can I tell? that have known no trouble, as you 
sa}^,” cried Lily. But Helen knew nothing to explain the 
keen tone of irony that was in the words, and looked at the 


243 


girl with an appeal in her patient eyes, too full of her own 
sorrow to remember that, perhaps, this younger creature 
might have sorrows too. ‘‘ How should I know,’^ said Lily, 
“ what a woman cannot do ? If it is to keep a man from 
wrong-doing, is that a woman’s business, Helen ? How do 
I know ? They say in books that it’s the women that 
drive them to it. Are you to take him on your shoulders 

and carry him away from the gates of Or what are 

you expected to do ? ” 

If she had married me when I asked her,” cried Duff, 
she would have done that. Ay, that she would ! From 
the gates of hell, that a little thing like you daren’t name. 
I would never have known the way they lay if she had put 
her hand in mine and come with me. And that I have 
told you, Helen, a hundred times, and a hundred more.” 

‘‘ Oh, Alick, Alick ! ” was all that Helen said. 

‘‘And you never would have thought shame,” cried Lily, 
“ to ride by on her shoulders, instead of walking on your 
own feet ? I would have set my face like a flint and passed 
them by, and scorned them that wiled me there ! I would 
have laid it upon nobody but myself if I had not heart 
enough to save my own head ! ” 

“ Oh, Lily, Lily ! ” cried Helen, turning upon her 
champion, “ my bonnie dear ! it’s you that are too young 
to understand. Maybe he’s wrong, but he’s a kind of 
right, too. I am not blaming him for that. Many a 
woman keeps a man on the straight road almost without 
knowing, and him no worse of it nor her either. I could 
tell you things ! And, Alick, I will not deceive you ; if I 
had not been so young that time — if I had only had the 
courage — for there was no reason then, but just that I 

was a young lass, and frightened, and did not know 

There was no reason — then ” 

“Except that I was wild Alick Duff, that they said 
would settle to nothing, and not a man that would ever 
make salt to his kale.” 

Helen made no answer, but shook her head with a sigh. 
“ How can I stand between you and him ? ” said Lily. 


244 


You take away my breath. I cannot understand the 
tongue you are speaking. It’s not good English nor Scots 
either, but another language. Are we angels, to make 
men good ? and is it no matter what evil thing a woman 
takes into her heart if she can but make her man look like 
a whited sepulchre, and keep him, as you say, on the 
straight road ? Is that what we were made for ? ” she 
cried in all the indignation of lier youth. 

Duff, a little surprised, a little confused by this unex- 
pected controversy, too much occupied with his own pur- 
pose not to be impatient with any digression, yet uncertain 
wliether this strange digression might not serve his cause 
in the end, made answer, first fixing his eyes upon Lily, the 
little girl who knew no trouble : “ I’m tliinking that was a 
good part of it,” he said. “You had the most to do with 
bringing ill into the world ; you should have the most to do 
with driving it out. But what do I care about women ? ” 
he cried. “ It’s Helen I’m thinking of. Tliere might never 
be such another, but there she is that could have done it, 
and would not lift her little finger. And now she will 
smile and send me awa}^” 

“ He speaks,” cried Lily, as if it were your responsibil- 
ity and not his — as if you would be answerable! ” 

“ Oh,” said Helen in a hurried undertone, “ and that is 
what I lie and think upon in the watches of the night. 
Will the Lord demand an account at my hands? Will he 
say: ^ Helen, where is thy brother ? ’ I that was maybe 
appointed for him to be his keeper, to take care of him, 
with all his hot blood and all his fancies that nobody un- 
derstood but me!’^ 

Duff was walking impatiently about the room, not listen- 
ing to what the two women spoke between themselves, 
and Lily was too much bewildered by this new view to 
make any answer, except by a brief exclamation : “ It is 
like a coward to put the blame upon you! ” 

“I would not shrink from it if I might bear it,” said 
Helen, “It’s not that. But to think it might be a man’s 
ruin that a poor frightened creature of a woman — no, a 


245 


lassie, twenty years old, no more — could not see her duty. 
For there was no reason then. My mother was living, 
my father was a strong man. The boys had been unlucky, 
but me, I was free. And I let him go away. Oh, lay the 
wyte on me ! ” she said, clasping her hands. Oh, lay the 
wyte on me ! ” 

Duff came suddenly to a stand-still before her, catching 
up something of what she said. “ I’ll forgive you all that’s 
come and gone, and all that might have been, and the 
vows I’ve broken, and the little good I’ve ever done” — a 
tender light came over his dark face — “ Helen, I’ll forgive 
you all my ruin, and we’ll gather up the fragments that 
are left, if you will but come with me now.” 

“ Forgive her ! ” cried Lily, indignant. 

“Ah, forgive her ! you that know nothing of the heart 
of man. Can she ever give it back ? She says herself the 
Lord will seek my blood at her hands : how muck more 
me, that knows what might have been and never has been 
because she was not there ? But, Helen, let it be now ! It 
may be but the hinder end of life that’s left, but better that 
than nothing at all. We are not so old yet, neither you 
nor me. And there’s the fragments that remain — the frag- 
ments that remain.” He held out his hands toward her, 
the face that Lily had thought so dark and forbidding 
melting in every line, the lowering brows lifted, the fierce 
eyes softened with moisture. And Helen looked up at 
him with her own overflowing, and a light as of martyr- 
dom on her face. 

“ Oh, Alick, my father, my father ! I cannot leave my 
father now.” 

He kicked away a footstool on the carpet with a sudden 
movement which, to Lily, at first appeared as if he were 
offering violence to Helen herself. “ Your father ! ” he 
cried, “ the minister that will have no broken man for his 
daughter nor ill name for his house, that wants the siller 
of them that come to woo, that would sell you away to 
that white-faced lad because he has something to the fore 
and a respectable name ! Oh, don’t speak to me of your 


246 


father, Helen Blythe, him that should be all spirit and 
that’s all flesh ! Confound him and you and all your 
sleekit ways ! In wliat Avay is he better than me ?” 

“ Man ! you will kill her ! ” cried Lily, springing forward 
and putting herself between them. How dare you swear 
at her, that is far, far too good for you ! ” 

But Helen was not horrified, like Lily. She looked at 
him still, bending her head to the other side. My 
father,” she said, ‘‘ has his faults, like us all. He is a mix- 
ture, as you are yourself. I am not angry at what you 
say. He likes his pleasure as you do, Alick. He is more 
moderate : he is a minister. He has not, maybe, been 
tempted like you, but I allow that it is not far different. 

Perhaps in the sight of God ” But here her voice 

failed her, suddenly interrupted by something deeper than 
tears. 

“ He likes his pleasure,” said Duff, with a short laugh ; 
“ he likes a good glass of wine, not to say whiskey, and a 
good dinner, and tells his stories, and is no more particular 
when he’s with his cronies than me. Only I’ll tell you 
what he does, Helen, that me I cannot do. Would he 
have had it in him if he had not been a minister, nor had 
a wife, nor been kept from temptation ? That is what 
none of us can tell. He knows when to stop ; he likes 
himself better than his pleasures. He keeps the string 
about his neck and stops himself when he’s gone far 
enough. I do not esteem that quality,” cried the big man, 
striding about the room, making the boards groan and creak. 

I am not fond of calculation. Alick Duff has cost me 
many a sore head and many a sore heart. I scorn him,” 
he cried, with a strong churning out of the fierce letters 
that make up that word, both for what he’s done and 
what he hasn’t done. But it’s no for him I would draw 
bridle if I were away in full career. But I would for 
you ! ” he said, suddenly sinking his voice, and throwing 
himself in a chair that swung and rocked under him by 
Helen's side. “ Helen, I would for you ! ” 


247 


CHAPTER XXVIII 

Lily had an agitating and troubled day between this 
strange pair, which had the good effect upon her, however, 
of turning her thoughts entirely away from her own affairs, 
the struggle and trouble of which seemed of so little 
importance beside this conflict which had the air of being 
for life or death. She did not understand either of the 
combatants : the man who so fearlessly owned his weak- 
nesses, and put the weight of his soul upon the woman who 
ought to have saved him ; or the woman who did not deny 
that responsibility, nor claim independence or a right irre- 
spective of him to follow her own way. Helen Blythe 
had ideas of life, it was evident, very different from those 
that had ever come into Lily’s mind. In those days there 
were no discussions of women’s rights ; but in those days, 
alas ! as in all other periods, the heart of a high-spirited 
young woman here and there swelled high with imagina- 
tion, wrath, and indignation at the thought of those indig- 
nities which all women had to suffer. That it should be 
taken as a simple thing that any man, after he had gone 
through all the soils and degradations of a reckless life, 
should have a spotless girl given to him to make him a new 
existence, was one of those bitter thoughts that rankled in 
the minds of many women, though nothing was said on 
the subject in public, and very little even among them- 
selves. For those were subjects which girls shrank from 
and blushed to hear of. The knowledge was horrible, and 
made them feel, when any chance fact came their way, 
as if their very souls were soiled by the hearing. Not 
that the elder women, especially those inconceivably ex- 
perienced and impartial old ladies of society, who see 
every thing with the sharpest e3"esight, and discuss every 
thing with words that cut and glance like steel, and who 


248 


have surmounted all that belongs to sex, except a keen 
dramatic interest in its problems, did not talk of these 
matters after their kind, as in all the ages. But the girls 
were not told, they did not know, they shrank from 
information which they would not have understood had it 
been conveyed to them, except, indeed, a few principles 
that were broad and general : that to marry a girl to an 
old man or a wicked man was a hideous thing, and that 
the old doctrine of a reformed rake, which had been 
preached to their mothers, was a scorn to womankind, and 
no longer to be suggested to them. For the magic of the 
Pamelas was over, and Sir Walter had arisen in the sk}^, 
which cleared before him, all noisome things flying where 
he made his honest, noble way. Not much these heroes 
of his, people say, not worth a Tom Jones with his stress 
and storm of life ; but bringing in a new era, the young 
and pure with the young and true, and not a white- 
washed Lovelace in the whole collection. Lily was of 
Scott’s age ; and when she saw this wolf approaching the 
lamb, or rather this black sheep, as every -body called him, 
demanding a maiden sacrifice to clean him from his guilt, 
her heart burned with indignation and the rage of inno- 
cence. She could not understand Helen’s strange ac- 
quiescence, nor her sense of possible guilt in not having 
accepted that part which was offered to her. The very 
atmosphere which surrounded Duff was obnoxious to Lily: 
the roughness of his tones and his clothes, his large, noisy 
movements and vehemence and gestures. He had lost, she 
thought, that air of a gentleman which is the last thing 
a man loses who is born to it, and never, as she believed, 
loses innocently. 

She was glad beyond description when, after much 
more conversation, and a meal to which his excitement 
and passion did not prevent him from doing a certain 
justice. Duff was got out of the house, leaving Helen 
behind, for whom the cart with the black pony had to be 
brought out once more. Helen was greatly exhausted by 
all the agitations of the day. He had left her without 


249 


bringing her to any change of mind, yet vowing he would 
see her once again and make her come with him still, that 
he would not yet abandon all hope, wliile she sat tired 
out, shaking her head softly, with a melancholy smile on 
her face — a smile more pitiful than many complaints. She 
did not rise from her chair to see him go away, hut fol- 
lowed him with wistful eyes to the door — eyes that were 
full of a dew of pain that flooded them, hut did not fall. 
She did not say any thing for a long time after he had 
gone. Was she listening to his steps as he went away, 
leaving on the air a lingering sound, measured and heavy ? 
Helen had thought that footstep like music. She had 
watched for it many a day, and heard it, as she thought, 
miles off, in the stillness of the long country roads, and 
again, in imagination, many and many a day when he was 
far out of hearing. She heard it now, long after it had 
been lost by every ear hut her own. Her face had a 
strained look, as if that sound drew her after him, yet 
stronger resolution kept her behind. 

“ You did not mean that, Helen — oh, not that ! ” Lily 
said, encircling her friend with her arm. 

My bonnie Lily ! but that I did, with all my heart ! ” 

That you, a good woman, would go away out into the 
world with an ill man, knowing he was an ill man, and 
thinking that you could turn him and mend him ! Oh, 
Helen, Helen! take him to your heart, that is pure as snow, 
knowing he was an ill man ? ” 

“ Lily, you are very young — you are little more than a 
bairn. What are our small degrees of good and ill — or 
rather of ill and worse — before our Maker ? Do you think 
he judges as we judge ? They say my poor Alick is wild, 
and well I wot he is wild, and has taken many, many a 
wrong step on the road. Oh, if you think it presumptu- 
ous of me to believe I could have held him fast so that he 
should not fall, that would be more true ! But, Lily, if 
ye were long in this countryside, you would see it with 
your own e’en. The women long ago were not so feared 
as we were. They just married the lad they liked, and if 


250 


lie were wild, forgave him ; and I’ve known goodwives 
that have just pushed them through — oh, just pushed them 
through ! — till they came to old age with honor on their 
heads and a fine family about tliem, that would have sunk 
into the miry pit and the horrible clay if the woman had 
not had the heart to do it. I am not saying I had not the 
heart,” said Helen, with a melancholy shake of her head, 
‘‘but I was young and knew nothing, and the moment 
passed away.” 

“ It can never be right,” cried Lily, “ to run such a 
dreadful risk! Oh, if they cannot guide themselves, who 
are we that we should guide them ? I am not like you, 
Helen. I know for myself I could guide no man.” 

Ho ! well she knew that ! Hot so much as for the 
taking of a little house — not so much as the simplest duty 
as ever lay in a man’s road. Helen was not so clever as 
Lily, she had no such pretensions in any wa}^; every thing — 
blood and breeding, and the habit of carrying out lier own 
projects and ‘holding her head high — was in the favor of 
the younger. But Lily had no such confidence as Helen. 
She did not believe in any infiuence she could exert. Her 
opinion, her entreaties, were of no use. They did not 
move Honald. He dismissed them with a kiss and a smile. 
“ I could guide no man,” she repeated with a bitter con- 
viction in her heart. 

“ It would, maybe, not be a perfect life,” said Helen : 
“ far from that ; there would be many an ill moment. The 
goodwife has her cross to carry, and it’s not light ; but, oh, 
Lily, better that than ruin to the man, and a lonely life, 
with little use in it, to her ; and there is aye the hope of 
the bairns that will do better another day.” 

“ The bairns,” said Lily, “ that would be the worst of all. 
An ill man’s bairns — to carry on the poison in the blood.” 

“ You are a hard judge,” said Helen, pausing to look at 
her, “ for one so young ; but it’s because you are so young, 
my bonnie dear. We are all ill men and women, too. 
There’s a line of poetry that comes into my head, though 
it’s a light thing for such a heavy subject, and I cannot 


251 


mind it exact to a word. It says we were all forfeit once, 
but he that might have best took the advantage found out 
the remedy. It is bonnier than that, and it is just the 
truth. The Lord said : ‘ Neither do I condemn thee,’ Ye 
will mind that at least, Lily.” 

“I mind them both,” cried Lily, piqued to have her 

knowledge doubted, ‘‘ but yet ” 

And you must not speak of my poor Alick as an ill 
man. Oh, if I could but let you see how little he is an ill 
man ! His heart is just as innocent as a bairn’s in some 
things, I’m not saying in all things. He is wild, poor lad, 
the Lord forgive him ! He does a foolish thing, and then 
he thinks after that he shouldn’t have done it. If I were 
there, I would make him think first, I would think for him; 
and then, if the thing was done, there would be me to try 
to mend it and him, too. But why should I speak as if 
tliat was in my power?” cried Helen, with a sudden soft 
momentary rush of tears, “ for I cannot, I cannot, go with 
Alick and leave my father ! I will have to stand by and 
see my poor lad go out again without a friend by his side 
into the terrible, terrible world.” 

Lily put her arm round her friend, kneeling beside her, 
giving a w^arm clasp of sympathy if nothing more. Helen’s 
heart was beating sadly, with a suppressed passion, but 
Lily felt as if her slim young frame was all one desperate 
pulse, clanging in her ears and tingling to her fingers’ 
ends. Was it her fault that in all her veins there burned 
this sense of impotence, this dreadful miserable conscious- 
ness that she could do nothing, move no one, and was 
powerless to shape her own fate ? Helen was powerless 
too, but in how different a way ! sure that she would have 
been able to fulfil that highest purpose if only her steps 
had been free, whereas Lily was humiliated by the cer- 
tainty that there was no power at all in her, that to every- 
body with whom she was connected she was a creature 
without individual potency, whose fate was to be decided 
for her by the will of others. The contrast of Helen’s feel- 
ing, which was so different, gave a bitterness to her pain. 


252 


It was all very simple,” said Helen. My father — 
you have never seen him at his best, Lily ; there is not 
a cleverer man, nor a better learned, in all this countryside 
— was tutor to Mr. Duff when they were both young, 
and the boys, as they grew up, used to come to him for 
lessons. Alick was the youngest, just two years older 
than me, that am the last of all. They were great friends 
with our own boys, who are both out in the world, and, 
oh, alack! not doing so very well that we should cast a 
stone at other folk. Eh but he was a bonnie boy ! dark, 
always dark, like his mother, but the flower of the flock, 
and courted and petted wherever he went. He was a wild 
boy, and wild he was, I will not deny it, in his youth, and 
began by giving me a very sore heart ; for, from the first 
that I can mind of, I have never thought of any man but 
him. And then he was sent away abroad — oh, not for 
punishment — to do better and make up the lost way. He 
came to my father and he said : ‘ Let Helen go with me 
and I’ll do well.’ I was but nineteen, Lily, and him 
twenty-one. They just laughed him to scorn. ‘ It would 
be the Babes in the Wood over again,’ they said, and 
what was I, a little lass at home, that I could be of any 
help to a man ? Lily ! ” cried Helen, her mild eyes shin- 
ing, her cheeks aglow, I knew better myself, though 
I dared not say it, and he, poor laddie, he knew best of all. 
I should have gone with him then ! that very moment ! if 
I had but seen it ; and, oh, I did see, but I was so young, 
and no boldness in my heart. My father said : ‘Work 
you your best for five years and wipe out all the old 
scores, and come back and ye shall have her, whether it 
pleases your father or no.’ For the family would not have 
it. I was not good enough for them. But little was my 
father minding for that. He never thought upon the old 
laird but as a boy he had given palmies to, and kept in 
for not knowing his lessons. He did not care a snap of 
his fingers for the old laird.” 

“At nineteen, and him twenty-one ! ” Lily said. 

“ Oh, yes — they all said it was folly, and maybe I would 


253 


say so, too, if I saw another pair. But for all that it was 
not folly, Lily. He wanted me to run away with him and 
say no word. And, oh, but I was in a terrible swither what 
to do. It’s peetiful to be so young : you have no expe- 
rience ; you cannot answer a word when they preach you 
down with their old saws. I thought upon my mother 
that was weakly, and Tom and Jamie giving a good deal 
of trouble. And at the last I would not. It was my 
moment,” she said softly, with a sigh, “ and I had a percep- 
tion of it ; but I was frightened, Lily, and, oh, so silly and 
young ! ” 

‘‘Helen, you could not, you should not, have done it. 
It would have been impossible! It would have been 
wrong ! ” 

Helen only shook her head with a melancholy smile. 
“And then he came back,” she said, “at the end of the 
five years. Never, never, Lily, may you have the feeling 
I had when I saw Alick Duff again. Something said in 
me: ‘Eelen, Eelen, that is your work!’ The light had 
gone from his eyes, and the open look ; his bonnie brow was 
all lined. He had grown to be the man you saw to-day. 
But what would that have mattered to me ? He had but 
the more need of me. Alas, alas ! my mother was dead, 
the boys all adrift, and my father taken with his illness, 
and what could I do then ? He pleaded sore and my heart 
went with him. Oh, I fear he had been wild, wild ! He 
came back without a shilling in his pocket or a prospect 
before him. The old laird was still living and went about 
with a brow like thunder. He looked as if he hated every 
man that named Alick’s name ; but them that knew best 
said he was the favorite still of all the sons. And Mrs. 
Duff, that had been so proud, that would not have the 
minister’s daughter for her bonnie boy, she came to me 
herself, Lily. You see, it was not me only that thought it. 
She said : ‘ Eelen, if you will marry him, you will save my 
bonnie lad yet.’ But I could not, I could not, Lily. How 
could I leave my own house, that had trouble in it, and 
nobody to make a stand but me ? ” 


254 


They were selfish and cruel ! ” cried Lily ; they would 
have sacrificed you for the hope of saving an ill man ! ” 

‘‘Oh, whisht, whisht,” cried Helen again. “And now he 
has come back. And every thing is changed. The old 
laird is dead and gone, and John Dulf, that was never very 
kind, is laird in his stead, and there’s no home for him 
there in his father’s house. And he’s a far older man — 
eight years it was this time that he was away. And you 
will wonder to hear me say a bonnie lad when you look at 
that black-browed man. But I see my bonnie lad in him 
still, Lily ; he is aye the same to me. And, oh, if you 
knew how it drags my heart out of my bosom when he 
bids me come with him and I cannot ! He says we might 
save the fragments that remain — but there’s more than 
that, more than that ! He has wasted his youth, but he 
has not yet lived half his life. And there’s that to save, 
Lily; and him and me together we could stand. Oh, Lily, 
there’s neither man nor devil that I would fear for Alick’s 
sake, and at Alick’s side, to save him — before it is too 
late!” 

“ Helen,” cried Lily, “ what do I know ? I dare not 
speak ; but what if after all you could not save him ? If 
he cannot stand by himself, how could you make him ? 
You are but a little delicate woman ; you are not fit to 
fight. Oh, Helen, Helen, what if you could not save him 
when all is done ! ” 

“ I am not feared,” Helen said with a serene counte- 
nance. And then there suddenly came a cloud over her, 
and tears came to her eyes. “ What is the use of speak- 
ing,” she said, throwing up her hands with an impatience 
unlike her usual calm, “ when I can do nothing ? when he 
must just go away again without hope, my poor Alick ! 
and come back no more ? And that will be the end both of 
him and me,” she went on, “ two folk that might have 
made a home, and served God in our generation, and 
brought up children and received strangers and held our 
warm place in the cold world. One of us will perish away 
yonder, among wild beasts and ill men, and one of us will 


255 


just fade away on the roadside like a flower thrown away 
when its sweetness is gone — and it will be no better for 
any mortal, but maybe worse, that Alick Duff and Helen 
Blythe were born into this weary world.” 

Oh, Helen, Helen ! ” cried Lily, “ I think Alick Duff 
must have been the cloud that has come over your life and 
turned its brightness to dark. If you had not always been 
thinking of him, you would have had another home and a 
brighter life. And even now — can I not see myself ? — 
don’t you know very well there is a good man ” 

Oh,” cried Helen, rising up with sudden animation, 
almost pushing Lily’s kneeling figure from her, ‘^go away 
from me with your good man ! It is enough to make a 
person unjust, to make ye hate the name of good ! How 
do you know whether they are good or no, one of them ? 
Were they ever tempted like him? Had they ever the 
fire of hot thoughts in their head, or the struggle in their 
hearts? Was nature ever in them running free and wild 
like a great river, carrying the brigs and the dams away ? 
or just a drumlie quiet stream, aye content in its banks, 
and asking no more ? Oh, dinna speak to me of your good 
man ! It’s blasphemy, it’s sacrilege, it’s the sin that will 
never be pardoned ! There is but one man, be he good or 
bad, and one woman that is bound to do her best for him ; 
and ill be her lot if she fails to do it, for it is not herself 
she will ruin, — that would matter little — the feckless creat- 
ure, no worth her salt, — but him, too, but him, too ! ” 

She sat down again after this little outburst and dried 
her eyes. Lily, who had risen hurriedly to her feet, too, 
startled and almost angry, stood irresolute, not knowing 
how to reply, when Helen put out to her a trembling hand. 
‘‘You are not to be troubled about me,” she said ; “you 
are not to be angry at what I say. It is a comfort to speak 
out my mind. Who can I speak to, Lily ? Not to my 
father, who stands between me and my life ; not to him^ 
that rages at me as you have heard because I cannot arise 
and follow him, as I would do if I could, to the end of the 
world. Oh, Lily, it is good for the heart, when it is full 


256 


like mine, to speak. It takes away a little of the burden. 
^ I leant my back until an aik ’ — do you mind the old song ? 
You are not an oak, you’re only a lily-plant, but, oh ! the 
comfort to lean on you, Lily, just for a moment, just till I 
get my breath.” 

‘‘Say to me whatever you like, Helen ; say any thing. I 
may not agree ” 

“I am not asking you to agree — how should you agree, 
you that know nothing ? 01), Lily, my bonnie Lily,” cried 

Helen, suddenly looking in her face, “ am I speaking 
blasphemy, too ? You may know more than I think ; there 
is that in your face that was not there six months ago.” 

The color changed in Lily’s cheek, but she did not flinch. 
“If I know any thing,” she said, “it is not in your way, 
Helen. I am not the kind of woman that can change a 
man’s thoughts or his life. I am one that has no power. 
If I tried your way, I would fail. No one has changed a 
thought or a purpose in all my life for me. I am useless, 
useless. I have to do what other folk tell me, and wait 
other folk’s pleasure, and blow here and blow there like a 
straw in the wind. And I love it not, I love it not! ” she 
cried. “It is as bad for me as for you.” 

Helen thought she knew what the girl meant. She was 
here in durance, bound by her uncle’s hard will ; prevented, 
too, from carrying out the choice of her heart. It had not 
yet dawned upon the elder woman that Lily’s experience 
had gone further than this. And it is possible that the 
gentle Helen, used all her life to an influence over others 
far stronger than seemed natural to her character, and 
believing fully and strongly in that power, could not have 
understood the higher trial of the far more vivacious and 
vigorous nature beside her, which flung itself in vain against 
the rock of another mind inaccessible to any power it pos- 
sessed, and, clear-sighted and strong-willed, had yet to 
submit and do nothing but submit. 


CHAPTER XXIX 


Alick Duff went away from the valley of the Rugas, 
calling on heaven and earth to witness that he would never 
be seen there more, and that from henceforward he was to 
be considered as an altogether shipwrecked and ruined 
man. “ There is nobody that will contradict j^ou there,” 
the minister said sternly, “ and nothing but the grace of 
God, my man, for all you threep and swear to make my 
poor Eelen meeserable, that would ever have made any 
difference.” “ And who will say,” cried Duff, ‘‘that it 
was not just her that would have been the grace o’ God ? ” 
The minister shook his head, yet was a little startled by 
the argument. As for Plelen, she said little more to her 
strange lover. “It is no use speaking now. There is 
nothing more to say. I cannot leave my father.” Lily, 
to whom this story had come like a revelation in the midst 
of the quiet country life which seems, especially in Scot- 
land, never to be ruffled by emotion, much less passion, 
and on whom it acted powerfully, restoring her mental 
balance and withdrawing at least a portion of her thoughts 
from herself, was a great deal at the Manse during this 
agitating period, which was all the more curious that 
nothing was ever said about it on the surface of the life 
which flowed on in an absolutely unbroken routine, as if 
there was no impassioned despairing man outside in the 
darkness waiting the moment to fling himself and his ter- 
rible needs and wishes at Helen’s feet, and no terrible 
question tearing her heart asunder. That it was there 
underneath all the time was plain enough to those who 
were in the secret. The minister had an anxious look, 
even when he laughed and told his stories ; and Helen, 
though her serenity was extraordinary, grew pale and red 
with an unconscious listening for every sound which Lily 
divined. He might burst in at any moment and make a 
17 


258 


scene in the quiet Manse parlor, destroying all the pretence 
of composure with which they had covered their life, or, 
worse still, he might do something desperate — he might 
disappear in the river or end his existence with a shot, 
leaving an indelible shame on his memory, and upon those 
who belonged to him, and upon her who, as the country 
folk would say, “had driven him to it.” If she had 
married Alick Duff and gone away with him, there would 
have been an unanimous cry over her folly; but if in his 
despair he had cut the thread in any such conclusive way, 
Helen never would have been mentioned afterward but as 
the woman who drove poor Alick Duff to his death. There 
was a thrill of this possibility even in the air of the little 
town, where he was seen from time to time wandering 
about the precincts of the Manse, and where every-body 
knew him and his story. But the most exciting thing of 
all to Lily was to see the face and watch the ways of the 
excellent young minister, Mr. Blythe’s assistant and suc- 
cessor, who went and came through these troubled days, 
talking of the affairs of the parish, sedulously restraining 
himself that he might not appear to think of, or be con- 
scious of, any thing else, but with a countenance which 
reflected Helen’s, which followed every change of hers, 
yet when her attention was attracted toward him, closed up 
in a moment, with the most extraordinary effort dismissing 
all meaning from his countenance. Lily became fascinated 
by Mr. Douglas, through whom she could read, as in a 
mirror, every thing that was happening. He said not a 
word on this subject, which, indeed, nobody spoke of, nor 
did he betray any consciousness of the other man’s pres- 
ence, about which even the maid in the kitchen and the 
minister’s man, who never had been so assiduous in the dis- 
charge of his duties as now, were so perfectly informed; 
but yet she felt sure that something in him tingled to the 
neighborhood of his rival like an elastic chord. He would 
come in sometimes pale, with a stern look in his closely 
drawn mouth, and then Lily would feel sure that he had 
seen Alick Duff in the way, waiting till Helen should 


259 


appear. And sometimes tbe lines of Lis countenance would 
relax, so that she felt sure he had heard good news and 
believed that haunting figure to have gone away; and then 
at a sound which was no sound outside, at the most trifling 
change in Helen’s face, the veil, the cloud, would shut 
again over his face. 

The manner in which Lily attained the possibility of 
making these studies was that by the minister’s invitation, 
seconded, but not with very much warmth, by Helen, she 
had come to the Manse on a visit of a few da3^s. What- 
ever prejudice Mr. Blythe had against her — and she was 
sure he had a prejudice, though she could not imagine any 
cause for it — had disappeared under the pressure of his own 
sore need. He himself was helpless either to watch over 
or to protect his daughter, and in despair he had thought 
of the other girl, herself caught in a tangle of the bitter 
web of life, and full of secret knowledge of its difficulties, 
who, though she was so much younger, had learned to 
some degree the lesson which Helen was so slow to learn. 
‘‘ She’s but a girl, but I’ll warrant she could give Eelen a 
fine lesson what it is to lippen to a man,” the minister said 
to himself. He had no high view of human nature, for his 
part. To lippen to a man seemed to him, though he had 
been in that respect severely virtuous himself, the last 
thing that a woman should do. For his own part be 
lippened to, that is, trusted, nobody very much, and 
thought he was wise in so doing. To have Lily there, 
seeing every thing with those young eyes, no doubt throw- 
ing her weight on the other side, allowing it at least to be 
seen that a man was not so easily turned round a woman’s 
little finger as poor Helen thought, would be something 
gained in the absence of all other help. Mr. Blythe had 
a tacit conviction that Lily’s influence would be on the 
opposite side, though his chief reason for thinking so was 
one that was fictitious. 

This was how Lily came to be acquainted with all that 
was going on. They all appealed to her behind backs, 
each hoping he or she was alone in calling for her sym- 


260 


patby. ‘‘ You will tell her better than I can ; they all dis- 
trust an old man. They think the blood’s dry in his veins 
and he has forgotten he was once like the rest. And she 
will listen to him at the last. The thought that he’s going 
away, to fall deeper and deeper, and that strong delusion 
she has got that she can save him, will overcome her, and 
I’ll be left in the corner of the auld Manse sitting alone.” 

Oh, no, Mr. Blythe, never think that ; Helen will not 
leave you.” 

I would not trust her, nor one of them,” he cried, and 
there in the dark, sitting almost unseen beside the fire, his 
voice came forth toneless, like that of a dead man. “ I 
have never been thought to make much work about my 
bairns : one has gone and another has gone, and it has 
been said that the minister never minded. But there was 
once an auld man that said : ‘ When I am bereaved of my 
children, I am bereaved.’ ” 

Lily put her hand upon the large, soft, limp hand of the 
old minister in quick sympathy. ‘‘ She will never leave 
you,” she repeated : “ you need fear nothing for that — she 
will never go away.” 

He shook his head and put his other hand for a moment 
over hers. “You may have been led astray,” he said, 
“ poor little thing ! but your heart is in the right place.” 

Lily did not think or ask herself what he meant about 
being led astray. She was too much occupied with Helen, 
who came in at the moment with the thrill and quiver in 
her which was the sign that she had seen her lover. The 
waning sunset light from the window which had seen so 
many strange sights indicated this movement too, the 
tremor that affected her head and slight shoulders like a 
chill of colder air from without. She said softly as she 
passed Lily : “ There is one at the door would fain speak 
a word to you.” It was not a call which Lily was very 
ready to obey. She had kept as far as possible out of the 
reach of Duff, and she had not the same sympathy for him 
as for the others involved ; indeed, it must be allowed that, 
notwithstanding the charm of the romance, Lily’s feelings 


261 


were far more strongly enlisted on the side of the gentle 
and patient young minister than on any other. She 
lingered, putting away some scraps of work which had 
been on the table, until she could no longer resist Helen’s 
piteous looks. Oh, go, go ! ” she whispered close to 
Lily’s ear. It was a blustering March night, the wind and 
the dust blowing in along the passage when the Manse 
door was opened, and Lily obeyed, yerj reluctantly, the 
gesture of the dark figure outside, which moved before her 
to a corner sheltered by the lilac bushes, which evidently 
was a spot very familiar. She felt that she could almost 
trace the steps of Helen on the faint line which was not 
distinct enough to be a path, and that opening among the 
branches — was it not the spot where she had leaned for sup- 
port through many a trying interview ? Duff tacitly ceded 
that place to Lily, and then turned upon her with his eyes 
blazing through the faint twilight. You are with them 
all day, you hear all they’re saying. They’re all in a con- 
spiracy to keep me hanging on, and no satisfaction. Tell 
me : am I to be cast off again like an old clout, or is there 
any hope that she’ll come at the last ? ” 

‘‘ There is no hope that she’ll come ; how could she? ” 
cried Lily. “ Her father is old and infirm, Mr. Duff, she 
has told you. It is cruel to keep her like this, always in 

agitation. She cannot; how could she ? Her father ” 

‘‘ Confound her father ! ” he cried, swinging his fist 
through the air. ‘‘ Whkt’s her father to her own life and 
mine ? You think one person should swamp themselves 
for another, Lily Ramsay. You’ve not been so happy in 
doing that yourself, if all tales be true.” 

“ What tales ? ” cried Lily, breathless with sudden 
excitement ; and then she paused and said proudly: Take 
notice, Mr. Duff, that I am not Lily Ramsay to you ! ” 

‘‘ What are you, then ? ” he cried, with a laugh of scorn. 
If you’ve kept your father’s name, you are just Lily 
Ramsay to Alick Duff, and nothing else. Our forefathers 
have known each other for hundreds of years. There was 
even a kind of a cousinship, a grandmother of mine that 


262 


was a Ramsay, or yours that was a Duff, I cannot remem- 
ber ; but if you expect me, that knew you before you were 
born, to stand on ceremony — and Lumsden too,” he added, 
in a lower tone, ‘‘ whatever you may be to him.” 

‘‘If it was my concerns you asked me out here to dis- 
cuss, I think I will go in,” said Lily, “ for it is cold out of 
doors, and I have nothing to say to you.” 

“ You know well whose concerns it was. Is she com- 
ing ? Does she understand that it’s for the last time ? I 
know what she thinks. I’ve been such a fool hitherto she 
thinks I will be as great a fool as ever, and come hanker- 
ing after her to the stroke of doom. If she thinks that, 
let her think it no more. This time I will never come 
back. I will just let myself go. Oh, it’s easier, far easier, 
than to hold yourself in, even a little bit, as I’ve done. 
I’ve always had the fear of her before my eyes. I’ve 
always said to myself: ‘ Not that ! not that ! or she will 

never speak to me again ; ’ but now ” He swung his fist 

once more with a menacing gesture through the dim air. 
It seemed to Lily as if he were shaking it in the face of 
Heaven. 

“ And you don’t think shame to say so ! ” cried Lily, 
tremulous with cold and agitation, and finding no argu- 
ment but this, which she had used before. 

“ Why should I think shame ? There are things a 
woman like Eelen Blythe can look over, but there are some 
you would not let her hear of, not to save your soul. It’s 
a matter of saving a man’s soul, Lily Ramsay, whatever 
ye may think. The worst is she knows every word I have 
to say: there’s nothing new to tell her — except just this,” 
he said with vehement emphasis : “ that this time I will 
never come back ! ” 

“ And that is not new either. I have heard you tell her 
so fifty times. Oh, man,” cried Lily, “ cannot you go and 
leave her at peace ? She w ill never forget you, but she will 
accept what cannot be helped. Me, I fight against it, but 
I have to submit too. And Helen will not fight. She will 
just live quiet and say her prayers for you night and day.” 


263 


“ Her prayers ! I want herself to stand by my side and 
keep my heart.” 

“You would be better with her prayers than with many 
a woman’s company. Your heart ! Can you not pluck up 
a spirit and stand for God and what is right without 
Helen ? How will you do it with her, then ? You would 
mind her at first — oh, I do not doubt every word she said — 
but then you would get impatient, and cry : ‘ Hold your 
tongue, woman! ’ ” 

“ Is that,” he cried quickly, “ what he says to you ? 
He is just a sneaking coward, and that I would tell him to 
his face! ” 

“You are a coward to call any man so that is not here 
to defend himself ! ” cried Lily, wild with rage and pain, 
“ though who you mean I know not, and what you mean 
I care not. Never man spoke such words to me, but you 
would do it, you are of the kind to do it. You have 
thought and thought that she could save you, and then 
when you found it was not so, you would be fiercer at her 
and bitterer at her than you have been at your own self. 
Oh, let Helen be ! She will never forget you, but she will 
never go with you so long as her old father sits there and 
cannot move in his big chair.” 

“If I thought that ” he said, then paused. “If 

that’s what’s to come of it all after more than a dozen 
years ! Would I have been a vagabond on the face of the 
earth if she had taken me then ? I trow no. You will 
think I am not the kind good men are made of ? Maybe 
no ; but there’s more kinds than one, even of decent men. 
I would not drag what was her name in the dust.” 

“ You think not,” said Lily, “ but if you have dragged 
your father’s ” 

“ You little devil,” he cried, “ to mind me of that ! ” 
and then he took off his hat stiffly, and with ceremony, 
and said : “ I beg your pardon. Miss Ramsay, or whatever 
your name may be.” 

“You are very insulting to me!” said Lily. “Why 
should I stand out here and let you abuse me ? What are 


S64 


you to me that I should bear it ? ” But presently she 
added, softening : I’m very sorry for you, all the same.” 

She was hurrying away when he seized her by the arm 
and held her back. Do you see that ? Am I to stand 
still and see that, and hold my peace forever ?” 

The corner among the lilacs had this advantage, care- 
fully calculated, who could doubt, years ago ? that those 
who stood there, though unseen themselves, could see any 
one who approached the door of the Manse. The young 
minister, Mr. Douglas, had come quietlj’’ in while they 
were speaking : his footstep was not one that made the 
gravel fly. He stood, an image of quietness and good 
order, on the step, awaiting admittance. Scotch ministers 
of that date were not always so careful in their dress, so 
regardful of their appearance, as this young Levite. He 
had his coat buttoned, his umbrella neatly folded. He 
was not impatient, as Duff would have been in his place, 
but stood immovable, waiting till Marget in the kitchen 
had snatched her clean apron from where it lay, and tied 
it on to make herself look respectable before she answered^ 
the bell. Duff gripped Lily ’s arm, not letting her go, and 
shaking with fierce internal laughter, which burst forth in 
an angry shout when the door was closed again and the 
assistant and successor admitted. “Call that a man !” 
he said, “ with milk in his veins for blood ; and you’re all 
in a plot to take her from me, and give her to cauld par- 
ritch like that! ” 

“ He would keep her like the apple of his eye. There 
would no wind blow rough upon her if he could help it! ” 
cried Lily, shaking herself free. 

“ And you think that a grand thijig for a woman ? ” he 
cried scornfully, “like a petted bairn, instead of the 
guardian of a man’s life.” 

“ Oh, Alick Duff ! ” cried Lily, half exasperated, half 
overcome, “ come back, come back an honest man, for her 
father will not live forever.” 

“ What would I want with her then if I was all I 
wanted without her ? ” he said, with another harsh laugh. 


265 


and then turned on his heel, grinding the gravel under his 
foot, and without another word stalked away. 

How strange it was to go in with fiery words ringing in 
her ears and the excitement of such a meeting in her veins, 
and find these people apparently so calm, sitting in the 
little dimly lighted parlor, where two candles on the table 
and a small lamp by Mr. Blythe’s head on the mantel- 
piece were all that was thought necessary ! Lily was too 
much moved herself to remark how they all looked up at 
her with a certain expectation : Helen wistful and anxious, 
the old minister closing his open book over his hand, the 
young one rising to greet her, with almost an appealing 
glance. They seemed all, to Lily’s eyes, so harmonious, 
the same caste, the same character, fated to spend their lives 
side by side. And what had that violent spirit, that uncon- 
trollable and impassioned man, with his futile ideal, to do 
in such a place ? Mr. Douglas belonged to it and fell into 
all its traditions, but the other could never have had any 
fit place within the little circle of those two candles on the 
table. When the pause caused by her entrance — a pause 
of marked expectation, though none of the party antici- 
pated that she would say a word — was over, the usual talk 
was resumed, the conversation about the parish folk who 
were ill, and those who were in trouble, and those to whom 
any special event had happened. John Logan and the 
death of his cows, poor things, who were the sustenance 
of the bairns ; and the reluctance of poor Widow Blair to 
part with her son, who was a “ natural,” and had just an 
extraordinary chance of being received into one of those 
new institutions where they are said to do such wonderful 
things for that kind of poor imbecile creature : this was 
what Helen and her friend were talking of. The minister 
himself had a more mundane mind. He held his Scotsman 
fiercely, and read now and then out loud a little jDaragraph ; 
and then he looked fixedly at Lily behind the cover of the 
newspaper, till his steady gaze drew her eyes to him. 
Then he put a question to her with his lips and eyes, with- 
out uttering any sound, and finding that unsuccessful, 


266 


called her to him. “ See you here, Miss Lily : there’s 
something here in very small print ye must read to me 
with your young eyes.” 

Can I do it, father ? ” said Helen. 

‘‘ Just let me and Miss Lily be. She will do it fine, and 
not grudge the trouble. Is that man hovering about this 
house ? Is he always there ? I will have to send for the 
constable if he will not go away.” 

‘‘ I hope he is gone for to-night, Mr. Blythe.” 

“ For to-night — to be back to-morrow like a shadow 
hanging round the place. You’re a young woman and a 
bonnie one, and that carries every thing with a man like 
him. Get him away ! I cannot endure it longer. Get 
him away ! ” 

Mr. Blythe ” 

“I am saying to you get him away!” said the 
minister in incisive, sharp notes. And then he added : 
“ After all, the old eyes are not so much worse than the 
young ones. Many thanks to you all the same.” 


CHAPTER XXX 

This agitating episode in Lily’s life was a relief to her 
from her own prevailing troubles. They all apologized to 
her for bringing her into the midst of their annoyances, 
but it was, in fact, nothing but an advantage. To contrast 
what she had herself to bear with the lot of Helen even 
was good for Lily. If she had but known a little sooner 
how long and sweetly that patient creature had waited, 
how many years had passed over her head, while she did 
her duty quietly, and neither upbraided God nor man, Lily 
thought it would have shamed herself into quiet, too, and 
prevented, perhaps, that crowning outcome of impatience 
which had taken place in the Manse parlor on that January 
night. Did she regret that Januaiy night with all its 
mystery, its hurry, and tumult of feeling ? Oh, no ! she 


267 


said to herself, it would be false to Ronald to entertain 
such a thought ; but yet how could she help feeling with 
a sort of yearning the comparative freedom of her position 
then, the absence of all complication ? Lily had believed, 
as Ronald told her, that all complications would be swept 
away by this step. She would be freed, she thought, at 
once from her uncle’s sway, and ready to follow her hus- 
band wherever their lot might lie. Every thing would be 
clear before her when she was Ronald’s wife. She had 
thought so with certain and unfeigned faith. She might 
perhaps have been in that condition still, always believing, 
feeling that nothing was wanted but the bond that made 
them one, if that bond had not been woven yet. Poor 
Lily ! She would not permit herself to say that she 
regretted it. Oh, no ! how could she regi’ct it ? Every 
thing was against them for the moment, but yet she was 
Ronald’s, and Ronald hers, forever and ever. No man 
could put them asunder. At any time, in any circum- 
stances, if the yoke became too hard for her to bear, she 
could go unabashed to her husband for succor. How, then, 
could she regret it ? But Helen had waited through years 
and years, while Lily had grown impatient before the end 
of one ; or perhaps it was not Lily, but Ronald, that had 
grown impatient. No, she could not shelter herself with 
that. Lily had been as little able to brave the solitude, 
the separation, the banishment, as he. And here stood 
Helen, patient, not saying a word, always bearing a brave 
face to the world, enduring separation, with a hundred 
pangs added to it, terrors for the man she loved, self- 
reproach, and all the exactions of life beside, which she had 
to meet with a cheerful countenance. How much better 
was this quiet, gentle woman, pretending to nothing, than 
Lily, who beat her wings against the cage, and would not 
be satisfied ? Even now what would not Helen give if 
she could see her lover from time to time as Lily saw her 
husband, if she knew that he was satisfied, and, greatest 
of all, that he was unimpeachable, above all reproach ? 
For that certainty Helen would be content to die, or to 


268 


live alone forever, or to endure any thing that could he 
given her to bear. And Lily was not content, oh ! not at 
all content ! Her heart was torn by a sense of wrong that 
was not in Helen’s mind. Was it that she was the most 
selfish, the most exacting, the least generous of all ? Even 
Ronald was happy — a man, who always wanted more than 
a woman — in having Lily, in the fact that she belonged to 
him; while she wanted a great deal more than that — so 
much more that there was really no safe ground between 
them, but as much disagreement as if they were a disunited 
couple, who quarrelled and made scenes between them- 
selves, which was a suggestion at which Lily half laughed, 
half shuddered. If it went on long like this, they might 
turn to be — who could tell ? — a couple who quarrelled, 
between whom there was more opposition and anger than 
love. Lily laughed at the thought, which was ridiculous ; 
but there was certainly a shiver in it, too. 

Duff had gone away before her short visit to the Manse 
came to an end. He disappeared after a last long inter- 
view with Helen under the bare lilac bushes, of which the 
little party in the parlor was very well aware, though no 
one said a word. The minister shifted uneasily on his 
chair, and held his paper with much fierce rustling up in 
his hands toward the lamp, as if it had been light he 
wanted. But what he wanted was to shield himself from 
the observation of the others, who sat breathless, exchang- 
ing, at long intervals, a troubled syllable or two. Mr. 
Douglas had, perhaps, strictl}^ speaking, no right to be 
there, spying, as the old minister thought, upon the 
troubles of the family, and, as he himself was painfully 
conscious, intrusively present in the midst of an episode 
with which he had nothing to do. But he could not go 
away, which would make every thing worse, for he would 
then probably find himself in face of Helen tremblingly 
coming back, or of the desperate lover going away. A 
consciousness that it was the last was in all their minds, 
though nobody could have told why. Lily sat trembling, 
with her head down over her work, sometimes saying a 


269 


little prayer for Helen, broken off in the middle by some 
keen edge of an intrusive thought, sometimes listening 
breathless for the sound of her step or voice. At last, to 
the instant consciousness of all, which made the faintest 
sound audible, the Manse door was opened and closed so 
cautiously that nothing but the ghost of a movement could 
be divined in the quiet. No one of the three changed a 
hair-breadth in position, and yet the sensation in the room 
was as if every one had turned to the door. Was she com- 
ing in here fresh from that farewell ? Would she stand at 
the door, and look at them all, and say : “ I can resist no 
longer. I am going with him.” This was what the old 
minister, with a deep distrust in human nature, which did 
not except Helen, feared and would always fear. Or 
would she come as if nothing had happened, with the dew 
of the night on her hair, and Alick Duff’s desperate words 
in her ears, and sit down and take up her seam, which Lily, 
feeling that in such a case the stress of emotion would be 
more than she could bear, almost expected ? Helen did 
none of these things. She was heard, or rather felt, to go 
upstairs, and then there was an interval of utter silence, 
which only the rustling of the minister’s paper, and a 
subdued sob, which she could not disguise altogether, from 
Lily, broke. And presently Helen came into the room, 
paler than her wont, but otherwise unchanged. It is 
nine o’clock, father,” she said; ‘‘I will put out the 
Books.” The Books” meant, and still mean, in many 
an old-fashioned Scotch house, the family worship, which 
is the concluding event of the da5^ She laid the large old 
family Bible on the little table by his side, and took from 
him the newspaper, which he handed to her without saying 
a word. And Marget came in from the kitchen, and took 
her place near the door. 

Thus Helen’s tragedy worked itself out. There is 
always, or so most people find when their souls are 
troubled, something in the lesson for the day, or in the 
chapter,” as we say in Scotland, when it comes to be read 
in its natural course, which goes direct to the heart. 


270 


Very, very seldom, indeed, are the instances in which this 
curious unintentional sortes fails. As it happened, that 
evening the chapter which Mr. Blythe read in his big and 
sometimes grulf voice was that which contained the 
parable of the prodigal son. He began the story, as we 
so often do, with the indifferent tones of custom, reveren- 
tial as his profession and the fashion of his day exacted, 
but not otherwise moved. But perhaps some glance at 
his daughter’s head, bent over the Bible, in which she 
devoutly followed, after the prevailing Scotch fashion, the 
words that were read, perhaps the wonderful narrative 
itself, touched even the old minister’s heavy spirit. His 
voice took a different tone. It softened, it swelled, it rose 
and fell, as does that most potent of all instruments when 
it is tuned by the influence of profound human feeling. 
The man was a man of coarse fibre, not capable of the 
finer touches of emotion; but he had sons of his owm out 
in the darkness of the world, and the very fear of losing 
the last comfort of his heart made him more susceptible to 
the passion of parental anguish, loss, and love. Lower 
and lower bowed Helen’s head as her father read ; all the 
little involuntary sounds of humanity, stirrings and breath- 
ings, which occur when two or three are gathered together, 
were hushed; even Marget sat against the wall motion- 
less; and when finally, like the very climax of the silence, 
another faint, uncontrollable sob came from Lily, the sen- 
sation in the room was as of something almost too much for 
flesh and blood. Mr. Blythe shut the book with a sound 
in his throat almost like a sob. He waved his hand 
toward the younger man at the table. ‘‘You will give 
the prayer,” he said in what sounded a peremptory tone, 
and leaned back in the chair, from which he was incapable 
of moving, covering his face with his hands. 

It was hard upon the poor, young, inexperienced assist- 
ant and successor to be called upon to “ give ” that 
prayer. It was not that he was untouched by the general 
emotion, but to ask him to follow the departure of that 
prodigal whose feet they had all heard grind the gravel, 


271 


the garden gate swinging behind the vehemence of his 
going — the prodigal who yet had been all but pointed out 
as the object of the father’s special love, and for whom 
Helen Blythe’s life had been, and would yet be, one long 
embodied prayer — was almost more than Helen Blythe’s 
lover, waiting, if perhaps the absence of the other might 
turn her heart to him, could endure. None of them, fort- 
unately, was calm enough to be conscious how he ac- 
quitted himself of this duty, except, perhaps, Mr. Blythe 
himself, who was not disinclined to contemplate the son- 
in-law whom he would have preferred as “ cauld parritch,” 
Duff’s contemptuous description of him. No heart in 
that,” the old minister said to himself as he uncovered his 
face and the others rose from their knees. The medioc- 
rity of the prayer, with its tremulous petitions, to which 
the speaker’s perplexed and troubled soul gave little fervor, 
restored Mr. Blythe to the composure of ordinary life. 

Helen said little on that occasion or any other. He 
will be far away before the end of the week,” she said 
next morning. “ It’s best so, Lily. Why should he bide 
here, tearing the heart out of my breast, and his own, too ? 
if it was not for that wonderful Scripture last night ! 
He’s away, and I’m content. And all the rest is just in 
the Lord’s hands.” The minister, too, had his own com- 
ment to make. “ She’ll be building a great deal on that 
chapter,” he said to Lily, ‘‘ as if there was some kind of a 
spell in it. Do not you encourage her in that. It was a 
strange coincidence, I am not denying it ; but it’s just the 
kind of thing that happens when the spirits are high 
strung. I was not unmoved myself. But that lad’s milk 
and water,” he added, with a gruff laugh, ‘‘ he let us easy 
down.” The poor lad,” time-honored description of a 
not fully fledged minister, whose prayer was milk and 
water, and his person ‘‘ cauld parritch ” to the two rougher 
and stronger men, accompanied Lily part of the way on 
foot as she rode home, Rory having come to fetch her, 
while the black powny carried her baggage. He was very 
desirous to unbosom his soul to Lily, too. 


272 


Miss Ramsay, do yoii think she will waste all her heart 
and her life upon that vagabond ? ” he said. “ It’s just 
an infatuation, and her friends should speak more strongly 
than they do. Do you know what he is ? Just one of 
those wild gamblers, miners, drinkers — -it may be worse 
for any thing I know, but my wish is not to say a word 
too much — that we hear of in America, and such places, in 
the backwoods, as they call it — men without a spark of 
principle, without house or home. I believe that’s what 
this man Duff has come to be. I wish him no harm, but 
to think of such a woman as Helen Blythe descending into 
that wretchedness! It should not be suffered, it should 
not be suffered ! taking nobody else into consideration at 
all, but just her own self alone.” 

‘‘I think so, too, Mr. Douglas,” said Lily, restraining 
the paces of Rory, ‘‘ but then what can any one say if 
Helen herself ” 

‘‘ Helen herself ! ” he said almost passionately; “ what 
does she know ? She is young ; she is without expedience. 
She is very young,” he added, with a flush that made it 
apparent for the first time to Lily that he was younger 
than Helen, because she is so inexperienced. She has 
never been out of this village. Men, however little they 
may have seen of themselves, get to know things ; but a 
woman, a young lady — how can she understand ? Oh, you 
should tell her, her friends should tell her ! ” he cried 
with vehemence. ‘‘ It is a wicked thing to let a creature 
like that go so far astray.” 

“ I agree with you, Mr. Douglas,” said Lily again, 
‘‘but if Helen in her own heart says ‘Yes,’ where 
is there a friend of hers that durst say ‘ No ’ ? Her 
father: that is true. But he will never be asked to 
give his consent, for while he lives she will never leave 
him.” 

“ You are sure of that ? ” the young minister asked. 

“ If it had not been so, would she have let him go now ? 
She will never leave her father, but beyond that I don’t 
think Helen will ever change, Mr. Douglas. If he never 


273 


comes back again, she will just sit and wait for him till 
she dies.” 

“ Miss Ramsay, I have no right to trouble you. What 
foolish things I may have cherished in my mind it is not 
worth the while to say. I thought, when the old man is 
away, what need to leave the house she was fond of, the 
house where she was born, when there was me ready to 
step in and give her the full right. It’s been in my 
thoughts ever since I was named to the parish after him. 
It’s nothing very grand, but it’s a decent down-sitting, 
what her mother had before her, and no need for any dis- 
agreeable change, or questions about repairs, or an}'- un- 
pleasant thing. Just her and me, instead of her and him. 
I would not shorten his days, not by an hour — the Lord 
forbid ! but just I would be always ready at her hand.” 

Oh, Mr. Douglas,” cried Lily, ‘‘ her father would like 
it — and me, I would like it.” 

‘‘ Would you do that ? ” cried the young minister, 
laying his hand for a moment on Lily’s arm. The water 
stood in his eyes, his face was full of tender gratitude and 
hope. But either the young man had pulled Rory’s bridle 
unawares, or Rory thought he had done so, or resented 
the too close approach. He tossed his shaggy head and 
swerved from the side of the path to the middle of the 
road, when, after an ineffectual effort to free himself of 
Lily, he bolted with her, rattling his little hoofs with 
triumph against the frosty way. It was perhaps as well 
that the interview should terminate thus. It gave a little 
turn to Lily’s thoughts, which had been very serious. And 
Rory flew along till he had reached that spot full of asso- 
ciations to Lily, where the broken brig and the Fairy Glen 
reminded her of her own little romance that was over. 
Over ! Oh, no, that was far from over ; that had but 
begun that wonderful day when Ronald and she picnicked 
by the little stream and the accident happened, without 
which, perhaps, her own story would have gone no further, 
and Helen’s would never have been known to her. Rory 
stopped there, and helped himself to a mouthful or two of 
18 


274 


fresh grass, as if to call her attention pointedly to the 
spot, and then proceeded on his way leisurely, having 
given her the opportunity of picking up those recollec- 
tions which, though so little distant, were already far off 
in the hurry of events which had taken place since then. 
Had it been possible to go back to that day, had there 
been no ascent of that treacherous ruin, no accident, none 
of all the chains of events that had brought them so much 
closer to each other and wound them in one web of fate, 
if every thing had remained as it was before the fated New 
Year, would Lily have been glad ? That the thought 
should have gained entrance into her mind at all gave a 
heavy aspect to the scene and threw a cloud over every 
thing. She did not regret it: oh, no, no ! how could she 
regret that which was her life ? But something intolera- 
ble seemed to have come into the atmosphere, something 
stifling, as if she could not breathe. She forced the pony 
on, using her little switch in a manner with which Rory 
was quite unacquainted. Let it not be thought of, let it 
not be dwelt upon, above all, let it not be questioned, the 
certainty of all that had happened, the inevitableness of 
the past ! 


CHAPTER XXXI 

The spring advanced with many a break and interval of 
evil weather. The east winds blew fiercely over the moor, 
and the sudden showers of April added again a little to the 
deceitful green that covered bits of the bog. But May 
was sweet that year ; in these high-lying regions the 
whins, which never give up altogether, lighted a blaze of 
color here and there among the green knowes and hollows 
where there was solid standing-ground, and where one 
who did not mind an occasional dash from the long heads 
of the ling which began to thrill with sap, or an occasional 
sinking of a foot on a watery edge, might now venture 
again to trace the devious way upon the most delicious 


275 


turf in the world here and there across the moor. The 
advancing season brought many a thrill of rising life to 
Lily. It seemed impossible to dwell upon the darker side 
of any prospect while the sunshine so lavished itself upon 
the gold of the whins and the green of the turf, and visi- 
bly moved the heather and the rowan-trees to all the effort 
and the joyous strain of life. I do not pretend that the 
sun always shone, for the history of the north of Scotland 
would, I fear, contradict that ; but the number of heavenly 
mornings there were — mornings which lighted a spark in 
every glistening mountain burn and wet flashing rock over 
which it poured, and opened up innumerable novelties of 
height and hollow, projecting points and deep Avithdraw- 
ing valleys, in a hillside which seemed nothing but a lump 
of rock and moss on duller occasions — were beyond what 
any one would believe. They are soon over : the glory of 
the day is often eclipsed by noon ; but Lily, whose heart, 
being restless, woke her early, had the advantage of them 
all. And many a tiny flower began to peep by the edges 
of the moor — little red pimpernels, little yelloAV celandines, 
smaller things still that have no names. And the hills 
stood round serenely waiting for summer, as with a smile 
to each other under the hoods which so often came down 
upon their brows even while the sun was shining. What 
did it matter, a storm or two, the wholesome course of 
nature ? Summer Avas coming Avith robes of purple to 
clothe them, and revelations of a thousand mysteries in the 
hearts of the silent hills. 

Amid such auguries and meditative expectations it was 
not possible that Lily could remain unmoved. And thus 
her expectation, if not so sublime as that of nature, was at 
least as exact and as well defined. Alas, the difference was 
that nature Avas quite sure of her facts, while an unfortu- 
nate human creature never is so. The course of the sun 
does not fail, however he may delay that coming forth 
from his chamber, like a bridegroom, Avhich is the laAV of the 
universe. But for the heart of man no one can answer. It 
Avas such a little thing to do, such an easy thing — no trouble, 


276 


no trouble! Lily said to herself. To find the little house 
they wanted, oh, how easily she could do it if she could 
but go and see herself to this, which was really a woman’s 
part of the business. Lily imagined herself again and 
again engaged in that delightful quest. She saw herself 
running lightly up and down the long stairs. Why take 
Ronald from his work when she could do it so easily, so 
gladly, so pleasantly, with so much enjoyment to herself ? 
And though she had been banished for so long, there w^as 
still many a house in Edinburgh which would take her in 
with kindly welcome, and rejoice over her marriage, and 
help and applaud the young couple in their start. Oh, how 
easy it all was were but the first step sure. She had 
thought, in her childishness, that the mere fact of marriage 
would be enough ; that it w^ould bring all freedom, all 
independence, with it; that the moment she stood by 
Ronald’s side as his wife the path of their life lay full in 
the sunshine and light of perfect day. Alas, that had not 
proved so! 

He came again another time between March and May. 
It was wonderful the journeys he took, thinking nothing 
of a long night in the coach coming and going, to see his 
love, for the sake of only a couple of days in her society. 
The women at Dalrugas were very much impressed, too, by 
the money it must cost him to make these frequent visits. 
‘‘ Bless me,” Katrin said, he is just throwing aw^ay his 
siller with baith hands; and what are they to do for their 
furnishing and to set up their house ? I am not wanting 
you to go, Beenie — far, far from that. It will be like the 
sun gone out of the sky when we’re left to oursel’s in the 
house, nothing but Dougal and me. But, oh ! only to 
think of the siller that lad is wastin’ with a’ his life before 
him. They would live more thrifty in their own house 
than him there and her here, and thae constant traiks from 
one place to another, even though her and you at present 
cost him naething — but what, after a’, is a woman’s 
meat ? ” 

I wot weel it would be more thrift, and less expense, 


m 


not to say better in every way ; but if the man does not 
see it, Katrin, what can the wife do? ” 

“ 1 ken very weel what 1 would do,” said Katrin, with 
a toss of her head. These were the comments below stairs. 
But when May came and went, and it was not till early 
June that Lily received her husband, the fever of expecta- 
tion and anxiety which consumed her was beyond expres- 
sion. She met him at the head of the spiral stair as usual, 
but speechless, without a word to say to him. Her cheeks 
flamed with the heat of her hopes, her terrors, her wild un- 
certainty. She held out her hands in welcome with some- 
thing interrogative, enquiring, in them. She did not wish 
to be taken to his heart, to be kept by any caress from see- 
ing his face and reading what was in it. Was it possible 
that it was not Ronald at all she was thinking of, but some- 
thing else — not her husband’s visit, his presence, his love, 
and the delight of seeing him ? And how common, how 
trivial, how paltry a thing it was which Lily was thinking 
of first, before even Ronald ! Had he found the little 
house ? Had he got it, that hope of her life ? was it some 
business connected with that that had detained him ? Had 
he got the key of it, something resembling the key of it, 
to lay at her feet, to place in her hand, the charter of her 
rights and her freedom ? But he did not say a word. W as 
it natural he should when he had just arrived, barely 
arrived, and was thinking of nothing but his Lily ? It 
was his love that was in his mind, not any secondary 
thing such as filled hers. He led her in, with his arms 
around her and joy on his lips. His bonnie Lily ! if she 
but knew how he had been longing for a sight of her, how 
he had been stopped when he was on the road, how every 
exasperating thing had happened to hold him back ! Ah, 
she said to herself, it would be the landlord worrying for 
more money, or some other wicked thing. “ But now,” 
cried Ronald, ‘‘the first look of my Lily pays for all! ” 
That was how it was natural he should speak. She sup- 
ported it all, though her bosom was like to burst. She 
would not forestall him in his story of how he had secured 


278 


it, nor yet chill him by showing him that while the first 
thought in his mind was love, the first in hers was the little 
house. Oh, no, she would respond, as, indeed, her heart 
did ; but she was choked in her utterance, and could speak 
few words. If he would only say a word of that, only 
once : ‘‘1 have got it, I have got it! ” then the floodgates 
would have been opened, and Lily’s soul would have been 
free. 

Ronald spoke no such word ; he said nothing, nothing 
at all upon that subject, or any thing that could lead to it. 
He was delighted to see her again, to hold her in his arms. 
Half the evening, until Beenie brought the dinner, he was 
occupied in telling her that every time he saw her she 
was more beautiful, more delightful, in his eyes. And 
Lily gasped, but made no sign. She would wait, she 
would wait ! She would not be impatient ; after all, that 
was just business, and this was love. She would have 
liked the business best, but perhaps that was because she 
was common, just common, not great in mind and heart like 
— other folk, a kind of a housewife, a poor creature think- 
ing first of the poorest elements. He should follow his 
own way, he that was a better lover, a finer being, than 
she ; and in his own time he would tell her — what, after 
all, was no fundamental thing, only a detail. 

The dinner passed, the evening passed, and Ronald said 
not a word, nor Lily either. She had begun to get be- 
wildered in her mind. Whit-Sunday ! Whit-Sunday ! 
Was it not Whit-Sunday that was the term, when houses 
were to be hired in Edinburgh, and the maids went to 
their new places ? And it was now past, and had nothing 
been done for her ? Was nothing going to be done ? 
Lily began to be afraid noAV that he would speak; that he 
would say some word that would take away all hope from 
her heart. Rather that he should be silent than that ! 
There was a momentary flagging in the conversation when 
the dinner was ended, and in the new horror that had 
taken possession of her soul Lily, to prevent this, rushed 
into a new subject. She told Ronald about Alick Duff 


279 


an<l Helen Blythe, and how she had received them at 
Dalrugas, and had passed some days at the Manse seeing 
the end of it. Ronald, with the air of a benevolent lord 
and master, shook his head at the first, but sanctioned the 
latter proceeding with a nod of his head. Keep always 
friends with the Manse people,” he said ; “ they are a 
tower of strength whatever happens ; but I would not have 
liked to see my Lily receiving a black sheep like Alick 
Duff here.” 

What had he to do with the house of Dalrugas, or those 
who were received there ? What right had he to be here 
himself that he should give an authoritative opinion ? 
Oh, do not believe that Lily thought this, but it flashed 
through her mind in spite of herself, as ill thoughts will 
do. She said quickly : ‘‘ And the worst is I took his 
part. I would have taken his part with all my heart and 
soul.” 

Ronald did nothing but laugh at this protestation. And 
he laughed contemptuously at the thought that Helen could 
have saved the man who loved her. That’s how he 
thinks to come over the women. He would not dare say 
that to a man,” he cried. “ Helen Blythe, poor little 
thing ! ” He laughed again, and Lily felt that she could 
have struck him in the sudden blaze out of exasperation 
which somewhat relieved her troubled mind. 

“ When you laugh like that, I think I could kill you, 
Ronald ! ” 

“ Lily ! ” he cried, sitting up in his chair with an 
astonished face, “ why, what is the matter with you, my 
darling ? ” 

“ Nothing is the matter with me ! except to hear you 
laugh at what was sorrow and pain to them, and deadly 
earnest, as any person might see.” 

“ Havers ! ” cried Ronald ; he had his tongue in his 
cheek all the time, yon fellow. He thought, no doubt, her 
father must have money, and it would be worth his 
while ” 

‘‘ If you believe that every-body thinks first of 


280 


money ” Lily said, lier hand, which was on the table, 

quivering to every finger’s end. 

‘‘ Most of us do,” lie said quietly; ‘‘ but what does it 
mean that my Lily should be so disturbed about Alick 
Duff, the ne’er-do-w^ell, and Helen Blythe ? ” 

“ I can’t tell you,” cried Lily, struggling with that 
dreadful, inevitable inclination to tears which is so hard 
upon women. I am — much alone in this place,” she 
said, with a quiver of her mouth, ‘‘ and you away.” 

‘‘ My bonnie Lily ! ” he cried once more, hastening to 
her, soothing her in his arms, as he had done so often 
before. That was all, that was all he could say or do to 
comfort her ; and that does not always answer — not, at 
least, as it did the first or even the second or third time. 
To call her My bonnie Lily! ” to lean her head upon his 
breast that she might cry it all out there and be comforted, 
was no reply to the demand in her heart. And the hysteria 
passion did not come to tears in this case. She choked 
them down by a violent effort. She subdued herself, and 
withdi’ew from his supporting arm, not angrily, but with 
something new in her seriousness which startled Ronald, 
he could not tell why. ‘‘ We will go upstairs,” she said, 
‘‘ or, if you would like it, out on the moor. It is bonnie 
on the moor these long, long days, when it is night, and 
the day never ends. And then you can tell me the rest of 
your Edinburgh news,” she said, suddenly looking into 
his face. 

Oh, he understood her now ! His face was not delicate 
like Lily’s to show every tinge of changing color, but it 
reddened through the red and the brown with a color that 
showed more darkly and quite as plainly as the blush on 
any girl’s face. He understood what was the Edinburgh 
news she wanted. Was it that he had none to give ? 

“ Let us go out on the moor,” he said. ‘‘ Where is 
your plaid to wrap you round ? It may be as beautiful as 
you like, but it’s always cold on a north country moor.” 

Not in June,” she cried, throwing the plaid upon his 
shoulder. It was nine o’clock of the long evening, but as 


281 


light still as day, a day perfected, but subdued, without 
sun, without shadow, like, if any thing human can be like, 
the country where there is neither sun nor moon, but the 
Lamb is the light thereof. The moor lay under the soft 
radiance in a perfect repose, no corner in it that was not 
visible, yet all mystery, spellbound in that light that 
never was on sea or shore. At noon, with all the human 
accidents of sun and shade, they could scarcely have seen 
their own faces, or the long distance of the broken land 
stretched out beyond, or the hills dreaming around in a 
subdued companionship, as clearly as now, yet all in a 
magical strangeness that overawed and hushed the heart. 
Even Lily’s cares — that one care, rather, which was so 
little, yet so great, almost vulgar to speak of, yet meaning 
to her every thing that was best on earth — were hushed. 
The stillness of the shining night, which was day; the 
silence of the great moor, with all its wild fresh scents and 
murmurs of sound subdued; the vast round of cloudless 
sky, still with traces on it of the sunset, but even those 
forming but an undertone to the prevailing softness of 
the blue — were beyond all reach of human frettings and 
struggles. They were on the eve of discovering that the 
earth had been rent between them, closely though they 
stood together, but in a moment the edges of the chasm 
had disappeared, the green turf and the heather, with its 
buds forming on every bush, spread over every horrible 
division. Lily put her arm within her husband’s with a 
long, tremulous sigh. What did any uneasy wish matter, 
any desire even if desperate, compared with this peace of 
God that was upon the hills and the moor and the sky? 

I doubt, however, whether all of this made it easier for 
Ronald to clear himself at last of the burden of the unful- 
filled trust. When she said next morning, with a catch in 
her breath, but as perfect an aspect of calm as she could 
put on : “ You have told me nothing about our house,” his 
color and his breath also owned for a moment an embar- 
rassment which it was difficult to face. She had said it 
while he stood at the window looking out, with his back 


282 


toward her. She had not wished to confront him, to fix 
him with her eyes, to have the air of bringing him to 
an account. 

Ronald turned round from the window after a momen- 
tary pause. He came up to her and took both her hands 
in his. ‘‘My bonnie Lily!” he said. 

“ Oh,” she cried with sudden impatience, drawing her 
hands from him, “ call me by my simple name ! I am your 
wife; I am not your sweetheart. Do I want to be always 
petted like a bairn ? ” 

“Lily!” he said, startled, and a little disapproving, 
“ there is something wrong with you. I never thought 
you were one to be afi^ected with nerves and such things.” 

“ Did you ever think I was one to live all alone upon 
the moor ? to belong to nobody, to see nobody, to be 
married in a secret, and get a visit from my man now and 
then in a secret, too ? and none to acknowledge or stand 
by me in the whole world ? ” 

“Lily ! Lily !” he cried, “how far is that from the 
fact ? Am I not here whenever I can find a moment to 
spare, and read}" to come at any time for any need if you 
but hold up your little finger ? Why is it you are not 
acknowledged and set by my side as I would be proud to 
do ? Can you ever doubt I would be proud to do it ? But 
many a couple have kept their marriage quiet till circum- 
stances were better. You and I are not the first — 1 could 
tell you of a score — that would not keep apart half their 
days and lose the good of their life, but just kept the fact 
to themselves till better times should come.” 

“ You said nothing to me about better times coming,” 
said Lily; “you spoke of the term, and that you could 
not get a house to live in till the term.” 

“ And I said quite true,” said Ronald. As soon as he 
got her to discuss the matter he felt sure of his own 
triumph. “ You knew that as well as I did. And now 
here is just the truth, Lily: I am not very well off, and it 
does not mend my practice that I’ve been so often here in 
the North. Don’t tell me I need not come unless 1 like; 


283 


that’s a silly woman’s saying, it is not like my Lily. I 
am not very well off, and you have nothing if there is a 
public breach with Sir Robert. And for a little while I 
have been beginning to think ” 

He paused, hoping she would say something, but 
Lily said nothing. She had covered her face with her 
hands. 

‘‘ I have been beginning to think,” he continued slowly, 
‘‘ that this is a bad time for beginning life in Edinburgh. 
You are not ignorant of Edinburgh life, Lily; you know 
that in the vacations, when the courts are up, nobody is 
there. If we had twenty houses, we could not stay in them 
in August and September, when every-body is away. As 
this is a bad time for beginning in Edinburgh, I was think- 
ing that to take the expense of a house upon me now 
would be a foolish thing. Think of a garret in the old 
town from this to autumn, with all the smoke and the bad 
air instead of the bonnie moor ! And in six weeks or a 
little more, Lily, I would be able to get some shooting 
hereabouts, which will be a grand excuse, and we could 
be together without a word said, with nobody to make any 
criticisms.” 

She cried out, stamping her foot : Will you never 
understand ? It is the grand excuse and the nobody to 
criticise that is insufferable to me. Why should there 
be any excuse ? Why should there be a word said ? lam 
your wife, Ronald Lumsden ! ” 

‘‘My dear, you are ill to please,” he said. “But 
nobody can see reason better, than you if you will but 
open your eyes to it. See here, Lily : two months and 
more are coming when our house, if we had it, would be 
useless to us, and in the meantime you are very well off 
here.” 

She gave him a sudden glance, and would have said 
something, but arrested herself in time. 

“You are very well here,” he repeated, “ far better than 
even going upon visits, or at some other little country 
place, where we might take lodgings, and be very uncom- 


284 


fortable. Your moor is a little estate to you, Lily; it’s 
company and every thing. And if I had a little shooting 
which I could manage — man with a gun is not hard to 
place in Scotland, and up in the north country there is 
many an opportunity; and there is always Tom Robison’s 
cottage to fall back on, where you are very well off as long 
as you neither need to eat there nor to sleep there. Your 
servants here are used to me. Whatever explanations 
Dougal has made to himself, he has made them long ago. 
I have no fears for him. Where would you be so well, 
my Lily, as in your home ? ” 

“ And where would you be so ill, Ronald,” she cried, 

“ as in — as in ” But Lily could not finish the sentence. 

How could it be that he did not say that to himself, that 
he left it to her to say — to her, who was incapable, after 
all, of saying to the man she loved such hard words ? Her 
own home, her uncle’s house, who had sent her here to 
separate her once for all from Ronald Lumsden, while 
Ronald arranged so easily to establish himself under his 
enemy’s roof. 

‘‘ Where would I be so ill as in Sir Robert’s house ? ” 
he said, with a laugh. ‘‘ On the contrary, Lily, I am 
very happy here. I have been happier here than in any 
other house in the world, and why should 1 set up scruples, 
my dear, when I have none? If Sir Robert had been a 
wise man he never would have tried to separate you and 
me ; and now that we have turned his evil to good, and 
made his prison a palace, why should we banish ourselves 
when all is done to do him a very doubtful pleasure? He 
will never hear a word of it in my belief, and if he does, he 
will hear far more than that I have come to share your 
castle for another vacation. It was the first step that was 
the worst: yon snow-storm, perhaps, at the New Year ; but 
that was the power of circumstances, and no Scots house- 
holder would ever have turned a man out into the snow. 
When we did that, we did the worst. A few weeks, 
more or less, after that — what can it matter ? And, short 
time or long time, it is my belief, Lily, that he will never 


285 


be a pin the wiser. Then why should we trouble our- 
selves ? ” Ronald said. 

As for Lily, this time she answered not a word. 


CHAPTER XXXII 

It may be imagined that after this there was very little 
said of the house in Edinburgh, which now% indeed, it was 
impossible to do any thing about till the term at Martin- 
mas. But Lily, I think, never alluded to the Martinmas 
term. Her heart sank so that it recovered itself again with 
great difficulty, and the very suggestion of the thing she 
had so longed for, and fixed all her wishes upon, now 
brought over her a sickness and faintness both of body and 
soul. When some one talked by chance of the maids 
going to their new places at the term, the color forsook her 
face, and Helen Blythe was much alarmed on one such 
occasion, believing her friend was going to faint. Lily 
did not faint. What good would that do ? she said to her- 
self with a sort of cynicism which began to appear in her. 
She dug metaphorically her heels into the soil, and stood 
fast, resisting all such sudden weaknesses. Perhaps 
Ronald was surprised, perhaps he was not quite so glad as 
he expected to be, when she ceased speaking on that 
subject; but, on the whole, he concluded that it was some- 
thing gained. If he could but get her to take things 
quietly, to wait until he was quite ready to set up such an 
establishment as he thought suitable, or, better still, till 
Sir Robert died and rewarded her supposed obedience by 
leaving her his fortune, which was her right, how fortu- 
nate that would be ! But Lily was taking things too 
quietly, he thought, with a little tremor. It was not 
natural for her to give in so completely. He watched her 
with a little alarm during that short stay of his. Not a 
word of the cherished object which had always been com- 
ing up in their talk came from Lily’s lips again. She 


286 


made no further allusion to their possible home or life 
together; her jests about cooking his dinner for him, about 
the Scotch collops and the howtowdie, were over. In- 
deed, for that time all her jests were over ; she was serious 
as the gravest woman, no longer his laughing girl, run- 
ning over with high spirits and nonsense. This change 
made Ronald very uncomfortable, but he consoled himself 
with thinking that in a light heart like Lily’s no such 
thing could last, and that she would soon recover her 
better mood again. 

He did not know, indeed, nor could it have entered into 
his heart to conceive — for even a clever man, as Ronald 
was, cannot follow further than it is in himself to under- 
stand the movements of another mind — the effect that all 
this had produced upon Lily, the sudden horrible pulling 
up in the progress of her thoughts, the shutting down as 
of a black wall before her, the throwing back of herself 
upon herself. These words could not have had any mean- 
ing to Ronald. Why a blank wall ? Why a dead stop ? 
He had said nothing that was not profoundly reasonable. 
All that about the vacation was quite true. Edinburgh is 
empty as a desert when the courts are up and the schools 
closed. The emptiness of London after the season, which 
is such perfect fiction and such absolute truth, is nothing 
to the desolation of Edinburgh in the time of its holiday. 
To live, as he said, in a garret in the old town, or even in 
the top story of one of the newer, more convenient houses 
in the modern quarter, while every -body was away, instead 
of here on the edge of the glorious heather, among the 
summer delights of the moor, was folly itself to think of. 
It was impossible but that Lily must perceive that, the 
moment she permitted herself to think. Dalrugas might 
be dreary for the winter, especially in the circumstances 
of their separation, he was ready to allow ; but in August, 
with the birds strong on the wing, and the heather rustling 
under your stride, and no separation at all but the punctual 
return of the husband to dinner and the evening fire — what 
was there, what could there be, to complain of ? Sir 


287 


Robert’s bouse an ill place for him ! he said to himself, 
with a laugh. Luckily he was not so squeamish. Such 
delicate troubles did not affect his mind. He could, see 
what she meant, of course, and he was not very sure that 
he liked Lily to remind him of it ; but he was of a robust 
constitution. He was not likely to be overwhelmed by a 
fantastic idea like that. 

And the autumnal holiday was, as he anticipated, 
actually a happy moment in their lives. Before it came 
Lily had time to go through many fits of despair, and 
many storms of impatience and indignation. To have 
one great struggle in life and then to be forever done, 
and fall into a steady unhappiness in one portion of exist- 
ence as you have been persistently happy in another, is a 
thing which seems natural enough when the first break 
comes in one’s career. But Lily soon learned the great 
differenpe here between imagination and reality. There 
was not a day in which she did not go through that 
struggle again, and sank into despair and flamed with 
anger, and then felt herself quieted into the moderation 
of exhaustion, and then beguiled again by springing 
hopes and insinuating visions of happiness. Thus not- 
withstanding all the bitterness of Lily’s feelings on various 
points, or rather, perhaps, in consequence of the evident 
certainty that nothing would make Ronald see as she did, 
or even perceive what it was that she wanted and did not 
want — the eagerness of her passion for the house, which 
meant honor and truth to her, but to him only a rash risk- 
ing of their chances, and foolish impatience on her part to 
have her way, as is the worst of women — and her bitter 
sense of the impossibility of his calm establishment here in 
her uncle’s house, a thing which he regarded as the sim- 
plest matter in the world, with a chuckle over the discom- 
fiture of the old uncle — all these things, by dint of being 
too much to grapple with, fell from despair into the 
ordinary of life. And Lily agreed with herself to push 
them away, not to think when she could help it, to accept 
what she could — the modified happiness, the love and 


288 


sweetness Avhich are, alas! of themselves not enough to 
nourish a wholesome existence. She was ha2}py, more or 
less, when he came in with his gun over his shoulder, and 
a bag at which Dougal looked with critical but unapprov- 
ing eyes. Dougal himself took, or had permission, to 
shoot over Sir Robert’s estate, which was not of great ex- 
tent. These were not yet the days when even a little bit 
of Highland shooting is worth a better rent than a farm, 
and the birds had grown wild about Dalrugas with only 
Dougal’s efforts at ‘‘keeping them down.” What the 
country thought of Ronald’s position it would be hard to 
say. He gave himself out as living at Tam Robison’s, 
the shepherd’s, and being favored b}" Sir Robert Ramsay’s 
grieve in the matter of the shooting, which there was no- 
body to enjoy. No doubt it was well enough known that he 
was constantly at Dalrugas, but a country neighborhood is 
sometimes as ojDaque to perceive any thing doubtful as it 
is lynx-eyed in other cases. And as few people visited at 
Dalrugas, there was no scandal so far as any one knew. 

And with the winter there came something else to 
occupy Lily’s thoughts and comfort her heart. It made 
her position ten times more difficult had she thought of 
that, but it requires something very terrible indeed to 
take away from a young wife that great secret joy and 
preoccupation which arise with the first expectation of 
motherhood. Besides, it must be remembered that there 
was in Lily’s mind no terror of discovery. Perhaps it was 
this fact which kept her story from awakening the sus- 
picious and the scandal mongers of the neighborhood. 
There was no moment at which she would not have been 
profoundly relieved and happy to be found out. She 
desired nothing so much as that her secret should be 
betrayed. This changes very much the position of those 
who have unhappily something to conceal, or rather who 
are forced to conceal something. If you fear discovery, 
it dodges you at every step, it is always in your way. 
But if you desire it, by natural perversity the danger 
is lessened, and nobody suspects what you would wish 


289 


found out. So that even this element added something 
to Lily’s happiness in her new prospects. That hope in 
the mind of most women needs nothing to enhance it ; the 
great mystery, the silent joy of anticipation, the over- 
whelming thought of what is, by ways unknown, by long 
patience, by suffering, by rapture, about to be, fills every 
faculty of being. I am told that these sentiments are old- 
fashioned, and that it is not so that the young women of 
this concluding century regard these matters. I do not 
believe it : nature is stronger than fashion, though fashion 
is strong, and can momentarily affect the very springs of 
life. But when it did come into Lily’s mind as she sat in 
a silent absorption of happiness, not thinking much, work- 
ing at her “ seam,” which had come to be the most delight- 
ful thing in heaven or earth, that the new event that was 
coming would demand new provisions and create new 
necessities which it seemed impossible could be provided 
for at Dalrugas, the thought gave an additional impetus 
to the secret joy that was in her. Such things, she said to 
herself, could not be hid. It would be impossible to con- 
tinue the life of secrecy in which she had been kept 
against her will so long. Whatever happened, this must 
lead to a disclosure, to a home of her own where in all 
honor her child should see the light of day. 

For a long time Lily had no doubt on this point. She 
began to speak again about the term and the upper story 
in the old town. “ But I would like the otlier better now,” 

she said; ‘‘ it would be better air for , and more easy 

to get out to country walks and all that is needed for health 
and thriving.” It had been an uncomfortable sensation 
to Ronald when she had renounced all the talk and antici- 
pation of the house to be taken at the term. But now that 
he was accustomed to exemption from troublesome 
enquiries on that point he felt angry to have it taken up 
again. He was disposed to think that she did it only to 
annoy him, at a time, too, when he was setting his brain to 
work to think and to plan how the difficulties could be got 
over, and how in the most satisfactory way, and with thq 
19 


290 


least trouble to her, every thing could be arranged for 
Lily’s comfort. But he did not betray himself ; he took 
great pains even to calm all inquietudes, and not to irritate 
her or excite her nerves (as he said) by opposition. He 
tried, indeed, to represent mildly that of all country walks 
and good air nothing could be so good as the breeze over 
the moors and the quiet ways about, where every thing 
delicate and feeble must drink in life. But Lily had con- 
fronted him with a blaze in her eyes, declaring that such a 
thing was not possible, not possible ! in a tone which she 
had never taken before. He said nothing more at that 
time. He made believe even, when Whit-Sunday re- 
turned, that he had seen a house, which he described in 
detail, but did not commit himself to say he had secured 
it. Into this trap Lily fell very easily. She had all the 
rooms, the views from the windows, the arrangement of the 
apartment described to her over and over again, and for 
the great part of that second summer of her married life 
there was no drawback to the blessedness of her life. She 
spent it in a delightful dream, taking her little sober walks 
like a woman of advanced experience, no longer springing 
from hummock to hummock like a silly girl about the moor, 
taking in, in exquisite calm, all its sounds and scents and 
pictures to her very heart. In the height of the summer 
days, when the air was full of the hum of the bees, Lily 
would sit under the thin shade of a rowan-tree, thinking 
about nothing, the air and the murmur wdiich w’as one with 
the air filling her every consciousness. Why should she 
have sought a deeper shadow. She wanted no shadow, 
but basked in the warm shining of the sun, and breathed 
that dreamy hum of life, and watched, without knowing 
it, the drama among the clouds, shadows flitting like breath 
as swift and sudden, coming and going upon the hills. 
All was life all through, constant movement, constant 
sound, alternation and change, no need of thinking, fore- 
seeing, fore-arranging, but the great universe swaying 
softly in the infinite realm of space, and God holding all — 
the bees, the flickering rowan-leaves, the shadows and the 


291 


mountains and Lily brooding over her secret — in the hollow 
of his hand. 

As the summer advanced, however, troubles began to 
steal in. She was anxious, very anxious, to be taken to the 
house, which he allowed her to believe was ready for her. 
It must be said that Ronald was very assiduous in his 
visits, very anxious to please her in every way, full of ten- 
derness and care, though always avoiding or evading the 
direct question. It went to his heart to disappoint her, as 
he had to do again and again. The house was not ready ; 
there were things to be done which had been begun, which 
could not be interrupted without leaving it worse than at 
first. And then was it not of the greatest importance for 
her own health that she should remain as long as possible 
in the delicious air of the North — the air which was, if not 
her own native air, at least that of her family ? Lily had 
been deeply disappointed, disturbed in her beautiful calm, 
and a little excited, perhaps, in the nerves, which she had 
never been conscious of before, but which Ronald assured 
her now made her “ ill to please ” — by his unreasonable 
resistance to her desire to take refuge in the house which 
she believed to be awaiting her — when a curious incident 
occurred. Beenie appeared one morning with a very con- 
fused countenance to ask whether her mistress would per- 
mit her to receive the visit of a cousin of hers, ‘‘ a real 
knowledgable woman,” who was out of a place and in 
want of a shelter. “You had better ask Katrin than me, 
Beenie,” cried Lily ; “ I’ve filled the house too much and 
too long already. It is not for me to take in strangers.” 
“ Eh, mem,” cried Katrin, her head appearing behind 
that of Beenie in the doorway, “ it will be naething but a 
pleasure to me to have her.” Katrin ’s countenance was 
anxious, but Beenie’s was confused. She could not look 
her mistress in the face, but stood before her in miserable 
embarrassment, laying hems upon her apron. “ Speak up, 
woman, canna ye ? ” cried Katrin, “ for your ain relation. 
Mem [Katrin never said Miss Lily now], I ken her as weel 
as Beenie does. She’s a decent woman and no one that 


292 


meddles nor gies her opinion. I’ll be real glad to have 
her if you’ll give your consent.” “ Oh, I give my con- 
sent,” Lily cried lightly. And in this easy way was 
introduced into Dalrugas a very serious, middle-aged 
woman, not in the least like Beenie, of superior education, 
it appeared, and a quietly authoritative manner, whose 
appearance impressed the whole household with a certain, 
awe. It was a few days after the termination of one of 
Ronald’s visits that this incident occurred, and Lily could 
not resist a certain instinctive alarm at the appearance of 
this new figure in the little circle round her. You are 
sure she is your cousin, Beenie ? She is not like you at 
all.” “ And you’re no like Sir Robert, Miss Lily, that is 
nearer to ye than a cousin,” said Beenie promptly. She 
added hurriedl}^: ‘‘It’s her father’s side she takes after, 
and she’s had a grand education. I’ve heard say that she 
kent as much as the doctors themselves. Education makes 
an awfu’ difference,” said Beenie with humility. I am 
not sure that Lily was more attached to this new inmate 
on account of her grand education. But that was, after 
all, a matter of very secondary importance ; and so the 
days and the weeks went on. 

There occurred at this time an interval longer than usual 
between Ronald’s visits, and Lily lost all her happy tran- 
quillity. She became restless, unhappy, full of trouble. 
“ What is to become of me, what is to become of me ? ” 
she would cry, wringing her hands. Was she to be left 
here at the crisis of her fate in a solitude where there was 
no help, no one to stand by her ? She felt in herself a 
reflection, too, of the visible anxiety of the two women, 
Beenie and Katrin, who never would let her out of their 
sight, who seemed to tremble for her night and day. The 
sight of their anxious faces angered her, and roused her 
occasionally to send them off with a sharp word, half jest, 
half wrath. But when she was freed from these tender 
yet exasperating watchers, Lily would cover her face with 
her liands and cry bitterly, with a helplessness that was 
more terrible than any other pain. For what could she 


293 


do ? She could not set out, inexperienced, alone, without 
money, without knowing where to go. She had, indeed, 
Ronald’s address; but had he not changed into the new 
house, if new house there was ? Lily began to doubt every 
thing in this dreadful crisis of her affairs. She had no 
money, and to travel cheaply in these days was impossible. 
And how could she get even to Kinloch-Rugas, she who 
had avoided being seen even by Helen Blythe ? She wept 
like a child in the helplessness of her distress. She did not 
hear any knock at the door or permission asked to come 
in, but started to find some one bending over her, and to 
see that it was the strange woman Marg’ret, Beenie’s sup- 
posed cousin. Lily made this discovery with resentment, 
and bid her hastily go away. 

“ Mem, Mrs. Lumsden,” Marg’ret said. 

Lily quickly uncovered her face. “ You know ! ” she 
cried with a mixture, which she could not explain to her- 
self, of increased suspicion, yet almost pleasure ; for 
nobody had as called yet her by that name. 

“ I would be a stupid person indeed if I didna know. 
Oh, madam, I’ve made bold to come in, for I know more 
things than that. Beenie would tell you I’ve had an edu- 
cation. I’ve come to beg you, on my bended knees, to 
give up all thoughts of moving — it’s too late, my dear 
young leddy — and just make yourself as content as you 
can here.” 

“ Here ! ” cried Lily, with a scream of distress. “ No, 
no, no, I must be in my own house. Woman, whoever 
you are, do you know I’m Miss Ramsay here ? It’s not 
known who I am, and what will they think if any thing — 
any thing — should happen ? ” 

“ Are you wanting to conceal it, Mrs. Lumsden ? ” 

“ No, no, no ! Any thing but that ! If you will go to 
the cross of Kinloch-Rugas and say Lily Ramsay has been 
Ronald Lumsden’s wife for more than a year, I will — I will 
kiss you,” cried Lily, as if that was the greatest sacrifice 
she could make. 

“ Then why should you not bide still ? If it’s found 


204 


out, it’s found out, and you’re pleased. And if it’s not 
found out, maybe the gentleman’s pleased. Mrs. Lumsden, 
I’m a real, well-qualified nurse. I will tell you the truth : 
they were frightened, thae women. I said, when Beenie 
told me, 1 would come and just be here if there was any 
occasion. Mistress Lumsden, I will show you my certifi- 
cates. I am just all I say, and maybe a little more. Will 
you trust yourself to me ? ” 

And what could Lily do ? She was in no condition to 
enquire into it, to satisfy herself if it was a plot of 
Ronald’s making, or only, as this woman said, a scheme 
of the women. To think over such subjects was no exer- 
cise for her at that moment. She yielded, for she could 
do nothing else. And a veiy short time after there was an 
agitated night in the old tower. It was the night of the 
market, and Dougal had come in, in the muzzy condition 
which was usual to him on such occasions, and conse- 
quently slept like a log and was conscious of nothing that 
was going on. Ronald had arrived the day before. And 
when the morning came, there was another little new 
creature added to the population of the world. 

It was more like a dream than ever to Lily — a dream 
of rapture and completion, of every trouble calmed, and 
every pang over, and every promise fulfilled. She was 
surrounded by love and the most sedulous watching. She 
seemed to have no longer any wishes, only thanks in her 
heart. She even saw her husband go away without trouble. 
‘‘ Come back soon and fetch us. Come back and fetch 
us,” she said, smiling at him through half-closed eyes. 

It was not, however, much more than a week after 
when Ronald, without warning or announcement, rushed 
into her room, pale with fatigue, and dusty from his jour- 
ney. “ I have come here post-haste! ” he cried. “ Lily, 
your Uncle Robert is in Edinburgh. He is coming on 
here for the shooting, and other men with him. If I’m a 
day in advance, that is all. I have thought of the only 
thing that is to be done if you will but consent.” 

‘‘ The only thing to be done,” said Lily, raising herself 


295 


in her bed, with sparkling eyes, “ is what I have always 
wished : to tell him all that’s happened, and, oh ! what a 
light conscience I will have, and what a happy heart ! ” 

“ He would turn you out of his doors! ” cried Ronald in 
dismay. 

“ VYell ! ” cried Lily, who felt capable of everything, 
“ I may not be a great walker yet, but I’ll hirple on till a 
cart passes or something, and they’ll take me in at the 
Manse.” 

‘‘ Oh, my darling, don’t think of such a risk! ” he cried. 
‘‘ For God’s sake, keep quiet! Say nothing and do noth- 
ing till you hear from me again. I have thought of a plan. 
Will you promise to do nothing, to make no confession, 
till I’m at your side, or till you hear from me ? ” 

Are you not going to stay with me, to meet him ? ” 

“ I cannot, I cannot ! I’ve come now at the greatest 
risk. Lily, you will promise ? ” 

I am going to dress the baby for the night,” said the 
nurse, interposing. ‘‘Will ye give him a kiss, mem, 
before I take him away ? ” 

Lily’s lips settled softly on the infant’s cheeks like a bee 
on a flower. “ He’s sweeter and sweeter every day. 
Ronald, you must not ask me too much. But I will try, 
so long as all is well and safe with him.” 

“ I will see that all is safe with him,” Ronald cried. 
He lingered a little with the young mother, half jealous of 
the looks she cast at the door for the return of the child 
in Margaret’s arms. 

“ You have told her not to bring him back,” she said 
with smiling reproach, “but I’ll have him all to myself 
after.” She was not afraid of his news, she was not 
shaken by his excitement. The approach of this tremen- 
dous crisis seemed only to exhilarate Lily. She was so 
glad, so glad, to be found out. It was the only thing 
that was wanting to her perfect happiness. 

Ronald’s gig had been waiting all the time while he 
lingered. He had to rush away at last in order to catch 
the night coach from Kinloch-Rugas, he said ; and Lily 


296 


waited, with smiles shining through the tears in her eyes, 
to hear the sound of the wheels carrying him away. And 
then she cried impatiently: Marg’ret, Marg’ret, bring 
me my baby !” 

But Marg’ret, it seemed, did not hear. 


CHAPTER XXXIII 

Sir Robert arrived, as they had been warned, next day. 
An express came in the morning, preceding him, to order 
rooms to be prepared for three guests — to the great indig- 
nation of Katrin, who demanded w^here she was expected 
to get provender for four men, and maybe men-servants 
into the bargain, that were worse than their masters, at a 
moment’s notice. ‘‘As if there was naetbing to do but 
put linen on the beds,” she cried. “The auld man must 
have gaun g^Te. Ye canna make a dinner for Sir Robert 
and his gentlemen out of a chuckie and a brace o’ birds 
frae the moor. If I had but a hare to make soup o’, or a 
wheen trout, or a single blessed thing. You’ll just put the 
black powny in the cart, Dougal, and ye’ll gang down 
yoursel’ to the toun. Sandy ! What does Sandy ken ? 
How could I trust that call ant to look after Sir Robert’s 
denner ? You’re nane so clever yoursel’ — but it’s you that 
shall go, and no another. Man, have ye no thought of 
your auld maister and his first dinner when the auld man 
comes home ? ” 

“I think of him maybe mair than some folk that have 
keepit grand goings on in his auld hoose.” 

“ What were ye saying?” cried Katrin, fixing him with 
a commanding eye. She pronounced this, as I have gently 
insinuated before, “F’what,” which gave great force to 
the sound. “ I might have kent,” she cried, with a toss of 
her head, “ there wasna a man breathing that could hold 
his tongue when he thought he had a story to tell! ” 

“ Me — tell a story ! ” said Dougal in instinctive self- 


297 


defence. Tlien he added : ‘‘ It a’ depends — on what a man 
has to tell.” 

‘‘Ye’re born traitors, a’ the race o’ ye, from Adam 
doun!” cried Katrin in her wrath, “and aye the women to 
bear the wyte^ accordin’ to you. Tell till ye burst ! ” she 
exclaimed with concentrated fury, “ and it’s no me ’ll say a 
word ; but put the powny in the cart and gang doun to 
the town, and try what ye can get for my denner. I’ll no 
have the auld man starved, no, nor yet shamed afore his 
f reends, nor served with an ill denner the first night — him 
tliat hasna been in his ain auld hoose for years.” 

“Ye’re awfu’ particular about his denner, considering 
every thing that’s come and gone, and the care you’ve ta’en 
of him and his.” 

“Yes!” cried Katrin, “I’m awfu’ particular about his 
denner. Are you going ? or will I have to leave the rooms 
to settle themselves and go raysel’ ? ” 

Dougal at last obeyed this strong impulsion ; but the 
black powny and the cart were not for so important a 
person as Sir Robert’s factotum the day his master came 
home. He put Rory into the geeg, and drove down in 
such state as was procured by these means, with his coun- 
tenance full of unutterable things. He was, indeed, when 
the little quarrel with Katrin was over, a man laden with 
much thouglit. Dougal had observed not very clearly, but 
yet more than he was believed to have observed. His 
stolid understanding had been played upon unmercifully 
by the women, and he had been taken in many times in 
respect to Ronald’s presence or absence in the house. 
Often it had occurred that he “ could have sworn ” the 
visitor was there when he was not there, and still oftener 
he could have sworn the reverse ; but at the end of all the 
tricks and deceptions he was tolerably clear as to the posi- 
tion of affairs, if he had possessed the faculty of speech, 
and sufficient indifference to other motives to have used it. 
But Dougal, who was a very simple soul, was held in the 
grasp of as great a complication of influences as if he had 
been the most subtle and the most self-analyzing. Should 


298 


he tell Sir Robert what he had seen and guessed? Sir 
Robert was his master, and it was DougaPs duty, as 
guardian of the house, to report what had occurred in it. 
Ay ! but would he shame the house by raising a story that 
maybe never would be got at by the right end ? For what 
could he say ? That a gentleman from Edinburgh had 
been about the place, coming and going by night and by 
day; that a person could never tell when he was there and 
when he wasna there ; and, finally, that it was clear as day- 
light him and Miss Lily were ‘‘great freends.” Ah, Miss 
Lily ! That brought up again another series of motives. 
She was his, DougaPs, young leddy, by every lawful tie, 
the only bairn of the house, the real heir. If Sir Robert, 
as he was perfectly capable, were to leave Dalrugas away 
from her the morn, she would not a whit the less be the 
only Ramsay left of the old family, Mr. James’s daughter, 
who had been DougaPs adoration in his youth. Was he to 
raise a scandal on Miss Lily — he, her own father’s man ? 
DougaPs heart revolted at the thought. And Katrin, that 
spoiled the lassie, that could see nothing that was not per- 
fect in her — Katrin would never have a good word for 
her man again. She would call him a traitor — that word 
that burns and never ceases to wound — like black Monteith 

that betrayed the Wallace wight, like But DougaPs 

courage was not equal to that anticipation ; rather any 
thing than that, rather flee the country than that — to 
betray a bit creature that trusted him, Mr. James’s daughter, 
the last Ramsay, a little lass that could not fight for her- 
self. “Ko me ! ” cried Dougal to all the winds that blew. 
“ No me ! ” he said, confronting old Schiehallion, as if that 
tranquil mountain had tempted him. He sliook his fist at 
the hills and at the world. “ No me, no me ! ” he said. 

I do not believe that Katrin ever was in the least afraid 
in respect to Dougal, but a very troubled woman was 
Katrin that da}^ She had been in Ronald Lumsden’s 
confidence all along, more than his wife knew, and in her 
way had abetted him and helped him, though often against 
her conscience. Beenie had done the same, but she had 


299 


not Katrin’s head, and meekly followed where the other 
led. They had both been partially guilty in respect to 
Marg’ret, a woman introduced into the house by the 
clumsiest means, which Lily could have seen through in 
a moment had she tried, but whose presence was so great 
a comfort and relief to the other two that their eagerness 
to accede to the artifice by which she was brought as 
a guest to Dalrugas was very excusable. ‘‘ What would 
you and me do, Eeenie?” Katrin had said, for once 
acknowledging a situation with which she was not able to 
cope. They had been able ‘‘ to sleep at night,” as they 
both said, since that woman was there, and there was 
nothing to be said against the woman. She was not 
troublesome, she was kind, she knew what she was about. 
That she was Ronald’s emissary was nothing against her. 
She was, on the contraiy, an evidence of the husband’s 
tender care for his wife ; his anxiety that she should have 
the best and most costly attention. “ And a bonnie penny 
she will cost him,” the two women said to themselves. 
But the events of the last twenty-four hours had alto- 
gether overwhelmed Katrin, and she had not the comfort 
even of speaking to any one on the subject, of expressing 
her horror, her amazement and dismay, for Beenie was shut 
up with Lily, whose state was such that she could not be 
left alone for a moment. It was well for the housekeeper 
that her head was filled with Sir Robert’s dinner and the 
airing of the mattresses. It gave her a relief from her 
heavy thoughts to drag down the feather beds and turn 
them over and over before a blazing fire, though it was 
August, and the sun blazing hot out of doors. She 
worked — as a Highland housekeeper works the day the 
gentlemen are to arrive — for the credit of the house and 
her own. ‘‘Would I let strangers find a word to say, or 
a thing forgotten, and me the woman in charge of Dal- 
rugas this mony and mony a year ? ” she said to herself. 
And it did Katrin a great deal of good, as she did not 
hesitate to acknowledge. It took off her thoughts. 

Sir Robert arrived in the evening with two elderly 


300 


friends and one young one, with all their guns and para- 
phernalia, Sir Robert’s own man directing every thing, and 
at least one other man-servant, bringing dismay to Katrin’s 
heart. ‘‘You will not have more than two or three good 
days on my little bit of moor,” the old gentleman had 
said with proud humility, “ but the neighbors are very 
friendly, and no doubt my niece has got a lot of cheerful 
Highland lassies about her that will enliven the time for 
you, my young friend.” The friends, young and old, had 
protested their perfect prospective satisfaction with the 
entertainment Sir Robert had to offer, none of them be- 
lieving, as, indeed, he did not believe himself, his own dis- 
paraging account of the moor. They arrived very dusty 
in their post-chaise, but in high spirits, the old gentleman 
with an excited pleasure in returning to the old house of 
his fathers, which he had not seen for years. Perhaps it 
looked to him small and gray and chill, as is the wont of 
old paternal houses when a long-absent master comes 
back. He called out almost as soon as he came in sight 
of the door, where Dougal was waiting with his bonnet 
poised on the extreme edge of his head, on one hair, and 
Sandy behind him, ready with awe to follow the directions 
of the gentlemen’s gentlemen, and carry the luggage 
upstairs. “ Where is Miss Lily ? Where is my niece ? ” 
Sir Robert cried. “ Does she not think it worth her 
trouble to come and meet her old uncle at the door ? ” 

Katrin came forward from the threshold, within which 
she had been lurking, and courtesied to the best of her 
ability. “ You’re welcome. Sir Robert ; you’re awfu’ wel- 
come,” she said ; “but Miss Lily, I’m sorry to say, is just 
very ill in her bed.” 

“ 111 in her bed ! ” cried Sir Robert. “ Nonsense ! 
Nonsense ! I know that kind of illness. She is vexed at 
me for sending her here, and she’s made up her mind to 
sulk a little that I may flatter her and plead with her. 
You may tell her it won’t do. I’m not that kind of man. 
I’ll pardon, maybe, a bonnie lass in all her braws and show- 
ing her pleasure in them, but a sulky, sour young woman 


301 


x 

Eh, Evandale, what were you saying — an old house ? It’s 
old enough if ye think that to its credit, and bare enough. 
Katrin, I liope you’ll be able to make these gentlemen 
comfortable in the old barrack, such as it is.” 

“I hope so. Sir Robert,” said Katrin. She was relieved 
that his animadversions on Lily should be cut short. 

And then they mounted the spiral staircase with the 
worn steps, which in one or two places were almost danger- 
ous, and which the elder men mounted very cautiouslj^, one 
after the other, the loud footsteps of the men echoing 
through the place, their deeper voices filling the air. 

‘‘ Lord bless us all ! ” Katrin cried within herself, if 
they had arrived ten days ago ! ” It was a comfort, in the 
midst of all the trouble, that Lily was safe in her bed, and, 
whatever happened, could not be disturbed. 

Sir Robert’s enquiries again next morning after his niece 
were made late and after long delay. It was the 12th 
of August, and unnecessary to say that Dalrugas w'as full 
of sound and hurry from an early hour ; the manufacture 
and consumption of an enormous breakfast, and the prep- 
arations for the first great day with the grouse, occupying 
every-body, so that Katrin herself, though very anxious, 
had not found a moment to visit Lily’s room, or even to 
snatch a moment’s talk with Beenie over her mistress’s 
state. “Just the same, and that’s very bad,” Beenie said, 
through the half-open door, “ and just half out of her wits 
with the noise, and no able to understand what it means.” 
“ Oh, it’s a’ thae men!” cried Katrin. “ The gentlemen 
and their grouse, and the others with the guns and the 
douges and a’ the rest o’t. Rity me that have not a 
moment, that must gang and toil for them and their break- 
fasts! ” When every thing was ready at last, and the party 
set out. Sir Robert, whose shooting days were over, accom- 
panied them to a certain favorite corner upon Rory, who, 
though the old gentleman was not a heavy weight, objected 
to the unusual length of his limbs and decision of his pro- 
ceedings ; but he returned to the house shortly after, 
musing, with a sigh or two. Perhaps it was a rash experi- 


302 


ment to come back after so many years ; his doctor had 
advised it strongly, giving him much hope from his native 
air, the air of the moors and hills, and from the quiet and 
regular hours and rule of measured living which he would 
have no temptation to transgress. “We must remember 
we are not so young as we once were — any of us,” the phy- 
sician had said, notwithstanding that he himself was but 
forty. When a man is old and ailing, and lives too peril- 
ously well, and sees and does too much in the gayer regions 
of the land, and is known at the same time to have a castle 
in the North, an old patrimony in the Highlands, delightful 
in August at least, and probably the best place in the world 
for him at all times of the year, such a prescription is easy. 
“Your native air. Sir Robert, and a quiet country life.” 
The 12th of August, a fine day, and already the sharp, clear 
report of the guns in the brilliant air, and a sense of com- 
pany and enjoyment about, and the moor a great magnifi- 
cent garden, purple with heather, is about as cheerful a 
moment as could be chosen to make a beginning of such a 
life. But old Sir Robert, returning from the beginning of 
the sport which he was not able to share to his old liouse, 
his Highland castle, which, as he turned toward it in the 
glorious sunshine of the morning, looked so gray and 
pinched and penurious, with the tower, that was only a 
high outstanding gable, and the farm buildings, which had 
for so long a time been the chief and most important 
points of the cluster of buildings to its humble occupants, 
had little to make him cheerful. A sharp sensation almost 
of shame stung the old man as he realized what his friends 
must have thought of his Highland castle. Taymouth and 
Inverary are castles, and so are the brand-new houses down 
the Clyde in which the Glasgow merchants establish them- 
selves with all the luxuries which money can buy. But 
wliere did old Dalrugas come in, so spare and poor, rising 
straight out of the moor without garden or plaisance, not 
to speak of parks or woods ? He smiled to himself a little 
sadly at the misnomer. He was wounded in the pride with 
which he had regarded that shrunken, impoverished little 


303 


place — a pride vvliicb he felt now was half ludicrous and 
yet half pathetic. How was it that he had not thought so 
when last he was here, then a mature man and liaving 
passed all the glamour of youth ? He shook his head at the 
pinched, tall gable, the corbie steps cut so clearly against 
the blue sky, the gray line of the bare, blank wall. After 
all, it was but a poor house for a family with such preten- 
sions as the Ramsays of Dalrugas — a poor thing to brag to 
his Southern friends about. And it was not very gay. He, 
who had been a man who loved to enjoy himself, and who 
had done so wherever he had been, to come back here in 
the end of his days to settle down to the dreariness of the 
solitary moor and the silence of a country life — was it not 
a discipline more than he could bear that ‘‘those doctors” 
had put him under? Was a year or two more of vegeta- 
tion here worth the giving up of all his old gratifications 
and amusements ? It is hard even upon a man who knows 
he is old, but does not care to acknowledge it, to accom- 
pany on a pony for a little way his friends, who are keen 
for their sport, to set them off on the 12th without 
being able to go a step or fire a shot with them. Those 
doctors — what did they know ? They had probably sent 
him off, not knowing what more to do for him, that they 
might not be troubled with the sight of him dying before 
their eyes. 

Then, however, there came before Sir Robert, by some 
more kindly touch of memory, certain scenes from the old 
life, when Dalrugas was the warmest and happiest home in 
the world, always overflowing with kindly neighbors and 
friends of youth. Their names came back to him one by 
one — Duffs, Gordons, Sinclairs. Where were the^^ all now ? 
There would be at least their representatives in all the old 
places — sons, na}^, perhaps grandsons, of his contempora- 
ries, young asses that would turn up their noses at a vieille 
moustache ; yet perhaps some of the old folk too. Lily 
would know ; no doubt but Lily would know every one of 
them. She would have her partners among the bo 3 ^s and 
her cronies among the girls. He felt glad that Lily was 


304 


here to renew the alliances of the old place. What had he 
sent her here for, by-the-bye ? Something about a silly 
sweetheart that she would not give up, the silly thing. 
Probably she would have forgotten his very name by this 
time, as Sir Robert did ; and there would be another now 
waiting his sanction. Well, no harm if it was a fit match 
for the last Ramsay. He would insist upon that. Some- 
body that had gear enough, and good blood, and a proper 
place in the world. No other should poor James’s daugh- 
ter marry ; that was one thing sure. 

And then he began to think what had become of Lily 
that she had neither come to meet him last night nor ap- 
peared this morning. Was she bearing malice ? or sulking 
at her old uncle ? He would soon see there was an end to 
that. If she was ill, she must have the doctor. If it was 
but some silly cold or other, or the headache that a woman 
sets up at a moment’s notice, she must get up out of her 
bed, she must come down stairs. Self-indulgence was good 
for nobod}^, especially at Lily’s age. He would see her 
woman, Beenie, who was her shadow, and whom Sir Robert 
began to recollect he had not seen any more than Lily her- 
self. And then the alternative should be given her — the 
doctor, who would stand no nonsense, or to get up and 
put a shawl about her, and nurse her cold by the fireside, 
where she could talk to him, and be much better than if 
she were in bed. Sir Robert quickened Rory’s paces, and, 
indeed, as the pony was nothing loath to reach his stable, 
appeared at the house with almost undignified haste to put 
in immediate operation this plan. 


CHAPTER XXXIV 

No better this morning ! What is the matter with 
her? I never heard Lily was unhealthy or delicate! ” 

She is neither the one nor the other,” said Katrin, in- 
dignant, “ but she’s not well to-day. The best of us. Sir 
Robert, we’re subjeck to that.” 


305 


“ Ye think so ! ” he said rather fiercely, as if it were 
a dogma to question. And tljeii lie added: ‘‘ There’s that 
big Beenie creature, that is, I suppose, as much with her 
as ever — send lier to me.” 

‘‘ Eh, Sir Robert, how is she to leave Miss Lily, that is 
just not well at all this morning ?” 

‘^Send her to me at once!” the old gentleman said im- 
peratively. lie went into the dining-room, which was on 
the lower floor and the room he liked best, the most com- 
fortable in the house. There were no signs of a woman’s 
presence in that room. A vague wonder crossed his mind 
if, after all, Lily had been here at all. He forgot that he 
had been much incommoded the evening before by the 
books and the work-baskets, the cushions and the footstools, 
which had demonstrated the some time presence of a woman 
upstairs, lie kept walking up and down the room stifliy, 
feeling his foot a little, as he owned to himself. Sir Robert 
truly felt that he would not be sorry if the prescription of 
his native air failed manifestly at once. 

“ Well,” lie said, turning round hastily at a timid open- 
ing of the door. ‘‘ How’s your mistress — how’s my niece ? 
What does she mean by taking shelter in her bed, and 
never appearing to bid me welcome ? ” 

“ Oh, Sir Robert, Miss Lily ” said Beenie. She held 

the door open and stood leaning against the edge, as if 
ready to fly at a call from without or a thrust from within. 
Beenie’s hair, which it was difficult to keep tidy at the best 
of times, hung over her pale countenance like a cloud, a 
short lock standing out from her forehead. We are accus- 
tomed now to every vagary of which hair is capable, and 
are not disturbed by loose locks ; but in those days strict 
tidiness was the rule ; and Beenie, very white as to her 
cheeks and red round the eyes, partly with tears, partly 
with watching, was, to Sir Robert, a being unworthy of 
any confidence. 

“ Woman ! ” he cried, you look as if you had been up 
all night — and not a fit person to be a lady’s body-servant, 
and with her night and day! ” 

20 


306 


‘‘ Fit or no,” said Beenie, with a sob, I’m the one Miss 
Lily’s aye had, and her and me will never be parted either 
with her will or mine.” 

‘‘ We’ll see about that,” said Sir Robert. But he was 
wise man enough to know that a favorite servant was a 
difficult thing to attack. He asked peremptorily : What is 
the matter with her?” placing himself, like a judge, in the 
great chair. 

Eh, Sir Robert, if Marg’ret, m}^ cousin, had been here, 
that is half a doctor herself ! but me I know nothing,” 
cried Beenie, Avringing her hands. 

‘‘ Is it a cold ? ” 

‘‘It was, maybe, a cold to begin with,” said Beenie 
cautiously, but then she melted into tears and cried : “She’s 
awfu’ fevered, she’s the color o’ fire, and kens nothing,” in 
a lamentable voice. 

“ Bless me,” cried Sir Robert, “ is there any fever 
about ? ” 

“ There’s nae fever about that I ken of — there’s nae folk 
hereby to get a fever,” Beenie said. 

Then I’ll go and see her myself ! ” cried Sir Robert, 
rising from his chair. 

“ Eh, Sir Robert ! ” cried Katrin, from behind the door, 
“you a gentleman that could do the puir thing no good ! 
It’s better to leave her to us women folk.” 

“There is truth in that, too,” Sir Robert said. He 
took a turn about the room and then sat down again in his 
chair, his forehead contracted with a line of annoyance 
and perplexity which might have been called anxiety b}^ a 
charitable onlooker. Beenie had seized the opportunity 
of Katrin’s appearance to huriy away, and he found him- 
self face to face with his housekeeper. He gave a long 
breath of relief. “ It’s you, Katrin,” he said ; “ you’re a 
sensible person according to your lights. There’s fever 
with all things — a wound (but that’s of course impossible 
for her), or a cold, or any accident. What’s your opinion ? 
Is it a thing that will pass awa}^ ?” 

“ Leave her with Beenie and me for another day, Sir 


307 


Robert, and the morn, if she’s no better. I’ll be the first to 
ask for a doctor; and eh, I hope it’s safe no to have him 
the day.” The latter part of this speech Katrin said to 
herself under cover of the door. 

“ She’ll have got cold coming home late from one of her 
parties,” said the old gentleman, regaining his composure. 

‘‘ Her pairties. Sir Robert ! ” said Katrin, almost with a 
shriek. And where, poor thing, would she get pairties 
here ? ” 

“She has friends, I suppose?” he said with a little impa- 
tience, “ companions of her own age. Where will young 
creatures like that not find parties ? is what I would ask.” 

“Eh, Sir Robert ! but I’m doubting you’ve forgotten 
our countryside. There’s Miss Eelen at the Manse that 
is her one great friend ; and John Jameson’s lass at the 
muckle farm, that has been at the school in Edinburgh, 
and would fain, fain think herself a lady, poor bit thing, 
would have given her little finger to be friends with Miss 
Lily. But you would not have had her go to pairties in the 
farmhouse ; and at the Manse they give nane, the minister 
being such a lameter. Pairties ! the Lord bless us ! Wha 
would ask her to pairties on this side of the moor ? ” 

“ There are plenty of people,” said Sir Robert almost 
indignantly, “ that should have shown attention to my 
brother James’s daughter, both for my sake and his. 
What do you call the Duffs, woman? and the Gordons of 
the Muckle moor, and Sir John Sinclair’s family at the 
Lews ? Many a merry night have we passed among us 
when we were all young. The Duffs’ is not more than 
a walk, even if Lily were setting up for a fine lady, which, 
to do her justice, was not her way.” 

“ Eh, hear till him ! ” breathed Katrin under her breath. 
She said aloud : “ Times are awfu’ changed. Sir Robert, 
since your days. The present Mr. Duff he’s married on 
an English lady, and they say she cannot bide the air of 
the Highlands, though it is well kent for the finest air in 
a’ the world. He comes here whiles with a wheen gentle- 
men for the first of the shooting — but her never, and there’s 


308 


little to be said for a house when the mistress is never in 
it. Of the Gordons there’s nane left but one auld leddy, 
the last of them, I hear, except distant connections. And 
as for Sir John at the Lews, poor man, poor man, he just 
died broken-hearted, one of his bonnie boys going to 
destruction after the other. They say the things are to be 
roupit and tlie auld mansion-house to be left desolate, for 
of the twa that remain the one’s a ne’er-do-well and the 
other a puir avaricious creature, feared to spend a shilling, 
and I canna tell which is the worst.” 

‘•Bless me, bless me! ” Sir Robert had gone on saying, 
shaking his head. He was receiving a rude awakening. 
He saw in his mind’s eye the old house running over with 
lively figures, with fun and laughter — and now desolate. 
It gave him a great shock, partly from the simple fact, 
which by itself was overwhelming, partly because of a sud- 
den pity which sprang up in his mind for Lily, and, most 
of all, for himself. What, nobody to come and see him, 
to tell the news and hear what was in the London papers ; 
no cheerful house to form an object for his walk, no 
men to talk to, no ladies to whom to pay his old-fashioned 
compliments ! This discovery went very much to his 
heart. After a long time he said : “ It would be better 
to let the houses than to leave them to go to rack and 
ruin, or shut up, as you say — the best houses in the 
countryside.” 

“ Let them ! ” cried Katrin. “ Gentlemen’s ain houses ! 
We’re maybe fallen low. Sir Robert, but we’re no just 
fallen to that.” 

“ You silly woman ! the grandest folk do it,” cried Sir 
Robert. Then he added in a lower tone : “ Lily, I am 
afraid, may not have had a very lively life.” 

“ You may well say that! ” cried Katrin. “ Poor bonnie 
lassie, if she had bidden ony gangrel body on the road, or 
any person travelling that passed this way, to come in and 
bear her company, I would not have been surprised for 
my part.” 

Katrin spoke very deliberately, avec intention. It 


309 


seemed well to prepare an argument, in case it might be 
used with effect another time. And Sir Robert was much 
subdued. He had not meant to inflict such a punishment 
upon his niece. He had believed, indeed, that her life at 
Dalrugas would be even more gay than her life in Edin- 
burgh. There the parties might occasionally be formal, 
or the convives bores, according to his own experience at 
least ; but here there was nothing but the good, warm, 
simple intimacy of the country, the life almost in com- 
mon, the hospitable doors always open. If a compunc- 
tious recollection of Lily ever crossed his mind in the 
midst of his own elderly amusements, this was what he 
had been in the habit of saying to himself : There will 
be lads enough to make a little queen of her, and lasses 
enough to keep her company, for she’s a bonnie bit thing 
when all is said.” He had always been a little proud of 
her, though she had been a great trouble to him ; and he 
thought he knew that in his old home Lily would be fully 
appreciated. That he had sent her out into the wilderness 
had never entered his thoughts. He dismissed Katrin 
with an uneasy mind, imploring her, almost with humility, 
to do every thing she could think of for his poor Lily, and 
if she was not better in the morning, to send at once for 
the best doctor in the neighborhood. Who was the best 
doctor in the neighborhood ? Indeed, there was but little 
choice — the doctor at Kinloch-Rugas, who was not so 
young as he once was, and had, alas, a sore weakness for 
his glass, and the one at Ardenlennie on the other side, 
who was well spoken of. ‘^Let it be the one at Arden- 
lennie,” Sir Robert said. He spent rather a wretched day 
afterward, taking two or three short constitutionals, up and 
down the high-road, three-quarters of an hour at a time, 
to while away the lonely day until his friends returned 
from the moor. It was far too painful an ordeal, to 
spend the 12th of August alone in this place where, in 
his recollection, the 12th of August had always been 
ecstasy. He should have chosen another moment. He 
had not imagined that he would have felt so much his own 


310 


disabilities of old age. He Ijad been wont to boast that 
be did not feel them at all, one kind of enjoyment having 
been replaced by another, and his desire for athletic 
pleasures having died a natural death in the perfection of 
his matured spirit and changed tastes, which were equal 
to better things. But he had certainly subjected himself 
to too great a trial now. That the 12th should be his 
first day at home, and that all his sport should consist of 
a convoy given to the sportsmen on the back of Rory, 
but not a gun for his own shoulder, not a step on the 
heather for his foot ! It was too much. He had been 
a fool. And then this silly misadventure of Lily and her 
illness to make every thing worse. 

A moment of comparative comfort occurred in the 
middle of the day when he had his luncheon. “Really 
that woman’s not bad as a cook,” he said to himself. She 
was but a woman, and a Scotch, uncultivated creature, but 
she had her qualities — and there was taste in what she sent 
him, that priceless gift, especially for an old man. He 
took a little nap after his luncheon, and then he took 
another walk, and so got through the day till the sports- 
men came back. They came in noisy and triumphant, 
with their bags, and their stories of what happened at this 
and that corner, of the cheepers that had been missed and 
the old birds that were full of guile. Had they been Sir 
Robert’s sons it is possible that he might have listened 
benignly, and felt more or less the pleasure by proxy 
which some gentle spirits taste. But they were strangers, 
mere “friends” in the jargon of the world, meaning 
acquaintances more or less intimate. Of the three he bore 
best the laughter and delight and brags and eagerness to 
show his own prowess of the young man. The others 
awakened a sharper pang of contrast. “Almost my own 
age ! ” Alas ! the difference between fifty and seventy is 
the unkindest of comparisons. They were not even good 
companions for him in the evening. When they had 
talked over every step of their progress, and every bird 
that had fallen before them, and eaten of Katrin’s good 


311 


dishes an enormous dinner, the strong air of the moor, and 
tlie hot fire of the peats, and the fatigue of the first day’s 
exercise and excitement, overpowered them one after 
another with sleep. Tliis would not have been the case 
had Lily been afoot to sing a song or two and keep them 
to their manners. Sir Robert was driven to the expedient 
of sending for Dougal when they had all, with many 
excuses, gone to bed. Dougal was sleepy, too, and tired, 
though not so much so as “tlm gentlemen,” to whom the 
grouse and the moor were, more or less, novelties. He 
gave his wife a curious look when Sir Robert’s man called 
him to his master, and Katrin responded with one that 
partly entreated and partly threatened. She said : “You 
can tell him Miss Lily is very bad, and I’ll get the doctor 
the first thing the morn.” 

Dougal uttered no word. He could not wear his bonnet 
when he went up to see the laird, but he took it in his 
hands, which was some small consolation. He was in a 
dreadful confusion of mind, not knowing what was to be 
said to him, what was to be demanded of him. He might 
be about to be put through his “ questions,” and want all 
his strength to defend himself ; or it might be nothing at 
all — some nonsense about the guns or the birds. His heavy 
shock of hair stood up from his forehead, giving something 
of an ox-like breadth and heaviness of brow. He held his 
head somewhat down, with a trace of defiance. Katrin 
might gloom ; it was little he cared for Katrin when his 
blood was up ; but there was not a bit of the traitor in 
Dougal. Ko blood of a black Monteith in him, if they 
were to put the thumbscrews on him or matches atween 
his fingers. That poor bonnie creature, whatever was her 
wyte — they should get nothing to trouble her out of him. 

“ Well, Dougal,” said Sir Robert, dangerously genial, 
“ you see I’m left all alone. My friends they have gone 
to their beds, as if they were callants home from the 
school.” 

“The gentlemen would be geyan tired,” said Dougal ; 
“ they’re English, and no accustomed to our moors, and 


B12 


some of them no so young either. You never kent that, 
Sir Robert, you that were to tlie manner born.” 

“ But too auld for tliat sort of tiling, Dougal, now.” 

‘‘ Maybe, and maybe not,” said Dougal. There’s nae- 
thing like the auld blood and the habit o’t. I’d sooner see 
you cock a rifle. Sir Robert, though I say it as shouldna, 
than the whole three of them.” 

No, no, Dougal,” said Sir Robert, that’s flattery. 
They’re not very good shots, then,” he said, with a smile. 
He was not indisposed to hear this of them, though 
they were his friends. 

“ Well, Sir Robert, I wouldna say, on their ain kind o’ 
ground, among the stubble and that kind o’ low-country 
shooting, which, I’m tauld, is the common thing there ; but 
no on our moors. When you’re used to the heather, it’s a 
different thing.” 

No doubt there is something in that,” Sir Robert 
allowed with discreet satisfaction. And then he added : 

What’s this I hear from your wife about all the old 
neighbors, and that there’s scarcely a house open I knew 
in my young daj^s ? ” 

“ What is that. Sir Robert ? ” said Dougal cautiously. 

The neighbors, ye dunce, my old friends that were 
all about the countryside wlien I was young, and that I 
thought would be friends for ray poor little Lily when she 
came here. I’m told there’s not one of them left.” 

Dougal did not readily take up what was meant, but he 
held his own firmly. There’s been nae gentleman’s 
house,” he said, what you would call open and receiving 
visitors round about Dalrugas as long as I mind — no more 
than Dalrugas itsel’.” 

“ Ah, Dalrugas itself,” said Sir Robert, a little abashed. 
It was true — if the others had closed their doors, so had 
Dalrugas ; if they were left to silence and decay, so had 
his own house been. Other reasons had operated in his 
case, but the result was the same. I’m afraid, Dougal,” 
he said, “ that my poor little Lily has had an ill time of it, 
which I never intended. Give me your opinion on the 


313 


subject. Your wife’s a very decent woman — and an excel- 
lent cook, I will say that for her— but slie’s like them all, 
she stands up for her own side. She would have me think 
that my niece has been very solitary among the moors. 
Now that was never what I intended. Tell me true : has 
Miss Lily been a kind of prisoner, and seen nobody, as 
Katrin says ? ” 

Dougal pushed his mass of hair to one side as if it had 
been a wig. “The young leddy,” he said, “had none o’ 
the looks of a prisoner. Sir Robert. I’ve seen her when 
you would have thought it was the very sun itsel’ shining 
on the moor.” 

“ You’re very poetical, Dougal,” said Sir Robert, with 
a laugh. 

“ And she would whiles sing as canty as the birds, and 
off upon Rory as light as a feather down to the market to 
see all the ferlies o’ the toun, and into the Manse for her 
tea.” 

“ That sounds cheerful enough,” said the old gentleman, 
“ though the ferlies of the town were not very exciting, I 
suppose. And old Blythe’s still at the Manse ? He’s one 
of the old set left at least.” 

“ He’s an altered man noo. Sir Robert ; never a step can 
he make out o’ his muckle chair ; they say he’s put into his 
bed at nicht, but it’s a mystery to me and many more how 
it’s done, for he’s a muckle heavy man. But year’s end to 
year’s end he’s just living on in his muckle chair.” 

“Lord bless us! ’’Sir Robert said. He looked down on his 
own still shapely and not inactive limbs with an involuntary 
shiver of comparison, and then he added, with a half laugh: 

A man that liked his good dinner, and a good bottle of 
wine, and a good crack, with any of us.” 

“ That did he. Sir Robert! ” Dougal said. 

“ Poor old Blythe 1 I must go and see him,” said the 
happier veteran, with an unconscious stretch of his capable 
legs, and throwing out of his chest. It was not any pleasure 
in the misfortune of his neighbor which gave him this 
glow of almost satisfaction. It was the sense of his own 


314 


superiority in well-being, the comparison whicli was so 
much in his own favor. The comparison this morning had 
not been in bis own favor and he had not liked it. He felt 
now, let us hope with a sensation of thankfulness, how 
much better oif he was than Mr. Blythe. 

“ Well, well, the Manse was always something, Dougal,” 
he said. ‘‘Manses are cheerful places ; there’s always a great 
coming and going. I hope there was nobody much out of 
her own sphere that Miss Lily met there — no young min- 
isters coming up here after her, eh ? They have a ter- 
rible flair for lasses with tochers, these young ministers, 
Dougal ? ” 

“ Ay, Sir Robert, that have they,” said Dougal, “ but I’ve 
seen no minister here.” 

“ That was good luck for Lily — or we that are responsi- 
ble for her,” said the old gentleman. “ Well, Dougal, 
my man, you’ll be tired yourself and ready for your 
bed, and to make an early start to-morrow with the 
gentlemen.” 

“ Ay, Sir Robert,” said Dougal. He was very glad to 
accept his dismissal, and to feel that without so much as a 
fib he had kept his own counsel and betrayed nothing. 
But when he had reached the door, he turned round again, 
crushing his bonnet in his hands. “ I was to tell you Miss 
Lily was no better, poor thing, and that the women thought 
the doctor would have to be sent for the morn.” 

Sir Robert’s countenance clouded over. “ Tchick, 
tchick!” he said, with an air of perplexity. “ You’ll see 
that the best man in the neighborhood is the one that’s 
sent for,” he cried. 


CHAPTER XXXV 

Theee had been a pause after Lily called to Marg’ret 
to bring the baby on the night when Ronald left her. 
Marg’ret, though very kind, was a person who liked her 
own way. If the child’s toilet was not complete, accord- 


315 


ing to her own elaborate rule, she did not obey in a 
moment even the eager call of the young mother. There 
were allowances made for her, as there always are for those 
who insist upon having their own way. 

Accordingly there was a pause. Lily lay and listened 
to the wheels of tlie geeg which carried Ronald away. 
They did not bring the same chill to her heart as usual, 
and yet a chill began to steal into the room. The night 
was warm and soft — the early August, which in the North 
is the height of summer — and there was no chill at all in 
the atmosphere. It seemed to Lily’s keen ears as she lay 
listening that the geeg paused as if something had been 
forgotten, but then went on at double speed, galloping up 
the brae, till the sound of the wheels was extinguished in 
the night and distance. Then she called again sharply : 

Marg’ret, Marg’ret ! bring in my baby! ” But still there 
was no reply. 

‘‘She’s just a most fastidious woman, with all her dress- 
ings and her undressings. She’ll no have finished him just 
to the last string tying,” said Robina. 

“ Bid her come at once, at once ! ” cried Lily. “ I want 
my little man.” 

And Beenie dived into the next room, which was muffled 
in curtains, great precautions having been taken lest the 
cry of the child should be heard down stairs. There was 
another room still within that, into which the nurse occa- 
sionally retired ; but there was no one in either place, nor 
were there any traces of the little garments lying about 
which betray a baby’s presence — every thing appeared to 
have been swept away. Beenie, who had come for the 
child with her rosy countenance beaming, stood still in 
consternation, her mouth open, her terrified eyes taking in 
every thing with speechless dismay ; for Marg’ret had 
never ventured down stairs as yet, nor had, they flattered 
themselves, a sound of the infant been heard, to awaken 
any question there. Beenie stood silent and terrified for a 
moment, and then, instead of returning to her mistress, she 
flew down stairs. Katrin was alone, doing some of her 


316 


delicate cooking carefully over the fire ; all was still, as if 
nothing but the most commonplace and tranquil events 
had ever happened there. Beenie, who had burst into 
the place like a whirlwind, again paused, confounded by 
this every-day tranquillity. Katrin, Katrin, where is 
Marg’ret ? ” she cried, adding in a lower tone, “and the 
bairn ? ” 

“ What a question to ask me ! ” said Katrin. “ She’s 
with your mistress without a doubt. Have you ta’en leave 
of your senses,” she murmured in a hurried undertone, “ to 
roar out like that about a bairn ? What bairn ? ” 

Here Beenie found herself at the end of all her resources. 
She burst out into loud weeping. “ She’s no up the stair 
and she’s no down the stair,” cried Beenie, “ and my bonnie 
leddy is crying out for her, and will not be satisfied! And 
she’s no place that I can find her — neither her nor yet the 
bairn.” 

Katrin thrust her saucepan from her as if it had been the 
offending thing ; she wiped her hands with her apron. 
She looked at Beenie, both of them pale with horror. “ Olq 
the ill man ! ” she cried. “ Oh, the monster ! Oh, sic a 
man for our bonnie dear ! I have been misdoubting about 
the bairn — but wha could have expectit that a young man 
no hardened in iniquity would have tliought of a contriv- 
ance like that? ” 

Beenie had no thouglit or time to spare even on such 
an enormity. “ How am I to face her — and tell her ? ” 
she said. 

And at this moment they heard Lily’s voice calling 
from above, at first softly, then shouting, screaming all 
their names. “ Marg’ret ! Beenie ! Katrin ! Marg’ret ! 
Marg’ret ! Beenie ! Katrin ! Where is my bairn ? 
where is my bairn ? ” 

The two women flew up the stairs, at the head of which 
they found Lily in her white night-dress, with her feet bare, 
her liair waving wildly about her head, her face convulsed 
and di-awn. “My bairn ! ” she cried, “ my bairn ! my little 
bairn! Where is Marg’ret ? Where is my baby? Mar- 


317 


g’ret ! Marg’ret ! Beenie ! Katriii ! bring me my baby — my 
baby ! ” Sbe seized Beenie wildly with lier trembling hands. 

‘‘ Oh, my daurlin’ ! ” Beenie cried. ‘‘Oh, my bairn — oh, 
my bonnie Miss Lily ! ” 

Lily flung the large weeping woman from her with a 
passion of impatience. “Katrin!” she said breathlessly, 
“ you have sense ; where is my baby ? bring me my baby ! 
My little bairn ! Did ye ever hear that an infant like that 
should be kept from his mother? Marg’ret! Marg’ret! 
Where has she taken my baby — my baby — my ” 

Lily’s voice rose to a kind of scream. She ceased to 
have command of her words, and went on calling, calling, 
for Marg’ret and for her child in an endless cry, not know- 
ing what she said. 

“ You will come back to your bed first and then I will 
tell you,” said Katrin. There was no one in the house but 
themselves, and they were isolated in this sudden tragedy 
from all the world by the distance and the silence of night 
and the moor. The door stood open at the foot of the 
stairs, and a cold air blew up through the long, many- 
cornered passage, chill and searching notwithstanding the 
warmth of the night. Lily was glad to lean shivering 
upon the warm support of the kind woman who encircled 
her with her arm. “ You will tell me — you will tell me,” 
she murmured, permitting herself to be drawn back to her 
room. The blind had been raised from one of the windows, 
and the moonlight streamed in, crossing the dimly lighted 
chamber with one white line of light. The bed, with the 
little table by it, and the candle burning calmly, seemed 
too peaceful for Lily’s mood of suspense and alarm. She 
stood still in the moonlight, Avhich seemed to make her 
figure luminous with her white bare feet and pale face. 
“ Tell me ! ” she cried, “ tell me ! Marg’ret ! Marg’ret ! 
Where has she taken my baby ? I want my baby — nothing 
more — nothing more.” 

“ For the Lord’s sake, mem ! ” said Katrin, “ ye are 
shivering and trembling. Go back to your bed.” 

“Oh, my daurlin’!” cried the weeping Beenie. “Oh, 


318 


my bonnie lamb, he’s just away with his father in the 
geeg. Ye iieediia cry upon Marg’ret ; she’ll no hear you, 
for it’s just her that’s taken him away ! ” 

“ Oh, you born fool ! ” Katrin cried, supporting her 
young mistress with her arm. 

But Lily twisted out of her hold. She turned upon 
Beeiiie, bringing her hands together wildly with a loud 
clap that startled all the silences about like the sudden 
report of a pistol, and then fell suddenly with a cry at 
their feet. 

Since that moment she had not recovered consciousness. 
Both of them knew by the force of experience how danger- 
ous a symptom in Lily’s condition is the strong convulsive 
shivering which had seized her, and for the greater part of 
that dreadful night before Sir Robert’s arrival they were 
both by her bedside striving with every kind of hot appli- 
cation to restore a natural temperature. But when they 
had partially succeeded in this, she still lay unconscious, 
sometimes agitated and disturbed, flinging herself about 
with her arms over her head, and once or twice repeating, 
what fllled them with horror, the extraordinary clap to- 
gether of her hands — sometimes quite still, and murmuring 
under her breath a continuous flow of inarticulate words, 
but never conscious of them or their ministrations, saying 
no word that had meaning in it. Sir Robert’s arrival 
made a certain change, and left the weight of the nursing 
upon Beenie, Katrin, with her many additional labors, 
being unable to bear her share. The}^ had alreadj^ how- 
ever, had time for several consultations on tlie subject, 
which Sir Robert naturally disposed of with so much ease, 
but which to the two women was a much more serious 
matter — a doctor. Would not a doctor divine at once with 
his keen, educated eyes what had happened so recently ? 
Would not he read as clearly as in a book what had been 
the beginning of Lily’s illness ? She lay helpless now, 
able to give them no assistance in disposing of her — she, so 
wilful by nature, who had alwa^^s got her own way, so far, 
at least, as they were concerned. It filled them with awe 


819 


to look at her lying unconscious, and to feel that her fate 
was in their hands. What were they to do? They were 
responsible for her life or death. 

The doctor, when he came, listened with very small 
attention to Beenie’s long and confused story, chiefly made 
up from things she had read and heard of the causes of 
Lily’s illness. Whatever the causes were, the result was 
clear enough. She was in a high fever, her faculties all 
lost in that confusion of violent illness which takes away 
at once all consciousness of the present and all personal 
control. ‘‘Fever” was an impressive word in those days, 
more alarming in some senses, less so in others, than now. 
It was not mapped out and distinct, with its charts and its 
well-known rules. There was not, so far as I am aware, 
such a thing as a clinical thermometer known, at least not in 
ordinary practice; and the Word “fever” meant something 
dangerously “catching,” something before which nurses 
fled and friends retired in dismay — which is not to say 
that those who suffered from it were less sedulously guarded 
and taken care of by their own people then than now. The 
first idea of both Beenie and Katrin, however, was that it 
must be “ catching,” being fever, and Sir Robert, when he 
was informed, was not much wiser. “ Fever — where could 
she have got it ? ” he said with a sudden imagination of 
some wretched beggar-woman with a sick child who might 
have given it to the young lady. “ It is not a thing of that 
kind. You are thinking of scarlatina or maybe typhus. 
Nothing of that sort. It does not spring from infection. 
It is brain-fever,” the medical man said. “Brain-fever ! ” 
said Sir Robert, indignant. “ There was never any thing of 
that kind in my family.” He took it as a reproach, as if 
the Ramsays bad ever been a race subject to disturbance 
in the brain! 

But whatever they said, it mattered little to Lily. She 
lay on her bed for hours together moving her restless head 
to and fro, muttering inarticulate words, then pouring 
forth a stream of vague discourse, through which there 
gleamed occasionally a ray of meaning, a wild sudden 


320 


demand, a flash of protest and expostulation. Not that ! 
not him ! ” she would sometimes say, ‘‘ any thing hut him ! ” 
and the doctor, making out as much as that one day, 
believed that the poor girl had been refused her lover, and 
that it was the sudden arrival of the uncle, who was hostile 
to them, which had brought on or precipitated the trouble 
in her brain. Sometimes she would call for ‘‘ Marg’ret, 
Marg’ret, Marg’ret ! ” in accents now of impatience, now of 
despair. And then he asked who Marg’ret was and wliy 
she did not come, or rather: Which of you is Marg’ret ?” 
to the confusion of the two women. Oh, sir, neither 
her nor me,” cried Beenie, neither her nor me ! but 
a woman that had something to do with her — in an ill 
moment.” ‘‘Let her be sent for, then,” he said per- 
emptorily. Beenie and Katrin had a great deal to bear. 
Knowing every thing, they had to pretend they knew 
nothing, to shake their heads and wonder why the patient 
should utter words which were heartrending to them as 
betraying the dreadful persistence of that impression of 
misery in her mind which they knew so well. They gave 
themselves the comfort of exchanging a glance now and 
then, which was almost all the mutual consolation they 
had. For Katrin was very much occupied with the 
housekeeping and her work, and the necessity for satisfy- 
ing her master and his guests, who, knowing nothing of 
Sir Robert’s family, and never having seen his niece, did 
not propose to go away, as guests in other circumstances 
would have done. And Sir Robert was very far from 
desiring that they should go away. He was terrified to 
find himself here alone, without even Lily’s company, and 
therefore said very little of her illness. What diiference 
could it make to her, if she never saw them or heard of 
them, whether Sir Robert had company or not? So 
Katrin labored morning and night to feed with her best 
the party in the dining-room, and with very imperfect 
help at first to look after all the wants of the gentlemen, 
while Beenie, isolated in her mistress’s room, nursed night 
and day the helpless, unconscious creature who required so 


321 


little, yet needed so much care. Those were not the days 
of carefully regulated nursing, in which the most im- 
portant matter of all is the preservation of the nurse’s 
health and her meals and hours of taking exercise. It was 
an age when the household was sufficient for itself, and 
the domestic nurse devoted herself night and day to her 
charge, accepting all the risks and fatigue as a matter of 
course. Beenie had no help and wanted none. Some- 
times for a moment’s refreshment she would go down to 
the door, and breathe in a long draught of the fresh morn- 
ing air, while Katrin stood by Lily’s bed trying to elicit 
from her a look or sign of intelligence. But Beenie could 
not have remained absent from her young mistress had the 
wisest of nurses been there to take her place. ‘‘ Na, na ; 
I’ve ta’en care of her a’ her days, and I’ll take care of her 
till the end,” Beenie said, when Katrin exhorted her to 
take a few minutes more of the outdoor freshness. “ Hold 
your tongue, woman, with your ends!” cried Katrin — “a 
young thing like that with a’ her life in her ! She will see 
us baith out.” ‘‘ Oh, the Lord grant it ! ” cried Beenie, 
shaking her large head. But how is she to live and face 
the truth and ken all that’s happened if ever she comes to 
herself? She will just sit up in her bed, and clap her two 
hands together as she did yon dreadful night — and give 
up the ghost.” 

‘‘ God forgive him — for I canna! ” said Katrin, with a 
deep-drawn breath. 

‘‘ And Marg’ret ! What do ye say to her, the deep 
designing woman, that had been planning it, nae doubt, all 
the time ?” 

“ Marg’ret ! ” cried Katrin with disdain, with the gesture 
of throwing something too contemptible for consideration 
from her. But she added : ‘‘There is just this to be said: 
We could not have keepit the bairn. Ko possible, her so 
ill, and the doctor about the house, and a wee thing that 
bid to have had the air and could not be keepit silent, nor 
yet hid. Oh, mony’s the thought I’ve had on that awful 
subject. It was the deed of a villain, Beenie! Maybe God 
21 


322 


will forgive him, but never me. And yet, being done, it’s 
weel that it was done.” 

“ Katrin ! ” cried Beenie in dismay. 

But something, perhaps, in their low-toned but vehement 
conversation had caught some wandering and confused 
faculty not entirely overwhelmed in Lily’s bosom. She 
began to call out their names again with a wild appeal, 
‘‘Marg’ret, Marg’ret ! ” above all the others, flinging out 
her arms and rising up in her bed, as Beenie had described 
in her gloomy anticipations, as if to give up the ghost. 

And in this way days and weeks passed away. Lily’s 
fever seemed to have become a natural part of the life of 
the house. Robina seemed to herself unable to remember 
the time when she went to bed at night and got up again 
in the morning like other people, and had ordinary meals 
and went and came about the house. And all the incidents 
that had gone before became dim. If an answer had been 
demanded of her hurriedly, she could scarcely have ven- 
tured to affirm that any one was true : the marriage cere- 
mony in the Manse parlor, the meetings of the young 
husband and wife, and above all the last tremendous event, 
which had seemed in its turn to be of more importance 
than any thing else that ever occurred. They had all 
faded away into the background, while Lily, sometimes 
pale as a ghost, sometimes flushed with the agitation of 
fever, lay struggling between life and death. The doctor, 
an ordinary village doctor, knew little of such maladies. 
He was reduced by his practical ignorance to the passive 
position which is now so often adopted by the higliest 
knowledge. He watched the patient with anxious and 
sympathetic eyes, naturally sorry for a creature so young, 
with her girlish beauty fading like a flower. He did not 
know what to do, and he wisely did nothing. He had 
made, as was natural, many attempts to find out how an 
attack so serious had been brought on. Had she received 
any great shock ? Katrin and Beenie, looking at each 
other, had answered cautiously that maybe it might be so, 
but they could not tell. Had she suddenly heard any bad 


323 


news? Oh, yes, poor thing, she had done that! very bad 
news that had just gone straight to her heart like the shot 
of a gun. ‘‘ But, doctor, you’ll say nothing to Sir Robert 
of that.” The doctor drew his own conclusions and satis- 
fied himself. No doubt the shock was the arrival of the 
old uncle. He had heard something of the young gentle- 
man who was always coming and going, and that the two 
would make a bonnie couple if eveiy thing went riglit, 
though this good-natured speech was accompanied by 
shakings of the head and prognostications of dreadful 
things that might happen if every thing went wrong. The 
doctor nodded his head and made up his mind that he liad 
penetrated the affair. It would not even have shocked him 
to hear that it had gone the length of a secret marriage. 
Private marriages acknowledged late were not looked 
upon in Scotland with very severe eyes. Both law and 
custom excused them, though in such a case as Lily’s it 
was strange that any thing of the kind should occur. 

But it becomes of very little importance, when such a 
malady has dragged along its weary course for weeks, to 
know what was the cause of it. The rapid cures which a 
promise of happiness works, in fiction at least, very seldom 
occur in life, and when the spiritual part of the patient 
becomes lost, as it were, in the hot running current of 
fevered blood, and the predominance of the agitated body 
is complete over all the commotions of the mind, it is vain 
to think of proposing remedies for the original wrong, 
even if that were possible. Sir Robert now and then paid 
a visit to his niece’s room, short and unwilling, dictated 
solely by a sense of duty. He stood near the door and 
looked at her, tossing on her pillows, or lying as if dead in 
the apathy of exhaustion, with an uneasy sense, partly 
that he was himself badly used by Providence, partly that 
he might, perhaps, be partially himself to blame. He had 
left her here very lonely. Perhaps it was a mistake in 
judgment ; but then he had been entirely ignorant of the 
circumstances, and how could it be said to be his fault? 
When she began to talk, he could not understand what she 


324 


said — nor, indeed, could any one in the quickened and hurry- 
ing incoherence of the utterance — except the cry of Mar- 
g’ret, Marg’ret, Marg’ret ! which still sometimes came with 
a passion that made it intelligible from her lips. Who 
is Marg’ret?” he asked angrily. I remember no person 
of that name.” Marg’ret ! Marg’ret ! Marg’ret ! ” cried 
Lily again, her confused mind caught by his repetition of 
the name. She flung herself toward the side of the bed 
which was nearest the door, opening her eyes wide, as if 
to see better, and adding, with a cry of ecstasy : ‘‘ She has 
brought him back — she has brought him back ! ” Sir 
Robert hurried away with a thrill of alarm. Who was 
it that was to be brought back ? Who was the Marg’ret 
for whom she cried night and day? Was it the mere 
delirium of her fever, or was something else — something 
real and unknown — hidden below? 


CHAPTER XXXVI 

Sir Robert had not at this time a happy life. His 
friends went away at last, having exhausted the little 
shootings of Dalrugas and finding that social amusement 
of any kind was not to be found there, besides the ever- 
present reason of illness in the house ” why they should 
not outstay the limits of their invitation. And no one 
else came. Why should they, considering how very little 
inducement he had to offer ? This of itself was a hard 
confession for the proud old man to make, who, perhaps, 
had been tempted now and then to enhance at his club, or 
in his favorite society, those attractions of his little patri- 
mony, which were so very different, as he remembered 
tliem, from what the}^ were now. John Duff of Black- 
scaur made a call to say chiefly how sorry he was that he 
could show no civilities to his neighbor, having only come 
to a dismantled house for a few weeks’ shooting, his wife 


825 


being abroad. I was glad to give a little sport to one of 
the young Lumsdens last year,” he said. “ I heard he was 
a friend of yours.” ‘‘ No friend of mine ! ” cried Sir 
Robert, suddenly recalled by the name to the original 
cause, which he had more than half forgotten, of Lily’s 
banishment. “Ah!” cried John Duff indifferently, “it 
was a mistake, then. Of course I knew his father.” This 
was the only social overture made to Sir Robert Ramsay, 
and it carried with it a sting, which gave him considerable 
uneasiness. “ Would the fellow have the audacity to come 
after her here?” he asked himself. And he made up his 
mind wrathfully, when Lily was better, to enquire into this 
allusion. When Lily was better ! But he was still more 
angry when any doubt was expressed on that subject. 
Katrin’s tearful looks once or twice when the patient was 
worse he took as a personal affront. He would not believe 
that Providence, however hostile, could treat him so badly 
as that. 

When he was in this lonely and unsatisfied state of 
mind, a letter came for him one day from the Manse, 
begging him in his charity to go and see the minister, who 
was unable to come to him. “ Ah ! old Blythe,” Sir 
Robert said. He would not have thought very much of 
old Blythe in other days, but now he remembered, not 
without pleasure, the good stories the minister told, and 
the good company he was. “ Will Rory last with me as 
far as the Manse ? ” he said to Dougal. “ Rory, Sir 
Robert, he’ll just last till the Day o’ Judgment,” said 
Dougal. “ I have no occasion for him so far as that ! ” 
Sir Robert replied sharply ; and he felt that it was not 
quite becoming his dignity to ride into Kinloch-Rugas 
mounted upon a Highland pony; but what can one do 
when there is no other way ? The minister sat as usual in 
his great chair by the fire, which burned dully still, though 
the day was August. He said : “ Come in. Sir Robert, 
come ben ! I’m very glad to see you, though it is a long 
time since we met. You will, maybe, find the fire too 
much at this time of the year, but, you see, I’m a lameter 


326 


that cannot move out of my chair, and I never find it warm 
enough for me.” 

“You should liave a chair that you could move about 
and get into the sun now and then ; that’s the only thing 
that warms the blood — at our age.” 

“I am years older than you. I consider you a fine trim 
and trig elderly young man.” 

The minister laughed more cordially at this jest than Sir 
Robert did. He did not like the faintest suggestion of 
ridicule. It is true that he was trim and well dressed, an 
example of careful toilet and appearance beside the care- 
less old heavy form in the easy chair. Mr. Blythe had 
long since ceased to care what his appearance was. Sir 
Robert was “very particular” and careful of every 
detail. 

“And how are you liking your home-coming?” Mr. 
Blythe said. “ It’s a trial and a risk when you have been 
away all the best of your life. I’m doubting the auld 
tower looks but small to your eyes by what it did in the 
old days.” 

“ Things are changed certainly,” said Sir Robert a little 
stifily, “ especially among the old neighbors. There used 
to be plenty of society; now there seems none, or next to 
none.” 

“ And that is true. The old folk are dead and gone ; the 
young generation is changed : the lads go away and never 
come back, the lasses marry into strange houses. It’s very 
true ; but you are just very fortunate. Like me, you have 
a child to your old age ; though you did not, like me. Sir 
Robert, take the trouble to provide her for yourself.” 

Sir Robert stared a little at this speech, and then said : 
“ If you mean my niece Lily, Blythe, you probably know 
that she’s very ill in bed, and a cause of great anxiety, not 
of comfort, to me.” 

“ Ay, ay,” said the minister, “we had heard something, 
but did not know it was so bad as that. But it will be a 
thing that will pass by; just some chill she has got out on 
the moor, or some other bit small matter. She has been 


327 


very well and blooming, a fine young creature all the time 
we have had her here.” 

“ I am by no means sure,” said Sir Robert, with a cloud 
on his brow, ‘‘that I did not make a mistake in sending 
her here. I had no intention to send her into a desert. 
My mind was full of the old times, when we were cheerful 
enough, as you will remember, Blythe, whatever else we 
might be. There was not much money going — nor per- 
haps luxury — but there was plenty of company. However, 
I’m glad you have so good a report to give of her. She’s 
neither well nor blooming, poor lassie, now.” 

The minister cleared his throat two or three times, as if 
he found it difficult to resume. “ Sir Robert,” he said, and 
then made a pause, “ I am not a man that likes to inter- 
fere. I have as little liking for that part as you or any 
man could have — to be meddled with in what you will think 
your own affairs.” 

Sir Robert stiffened visibly, uplifting his throat in the 
stiff stock, which, in his easiest moment, seemed to hold 
him within risk of strangulation. “ I fail to see,” he said, 
“ what there is in my affairs that would warrant interfer- 
ence from you or any man ; but if you’ve got any thing to 
say, say it out.” 

“ I meddle with nobody,” said the minister as proudly, 
“ unless it is for the young of the flock. I can scarcely 
call you one of my flock. Sir Robert.” 

“A grewsome auld tup at the best, you’ll be thinking,” 
said Sir Robert, with a harsh laugh. 

“ Man ! ” said the minister, “ at the least of it we are old 
friends. We know each other’s mettle ; if we quarrel, it ’ll 
do little good or harm to any body. And if you like to 
fling off in a fit, you must just do it. What I’ve got to say 
is just this: Women folk are hard to manage for them that 
are not used to them. I’ve not just come as well out of it 
as I would have liked myself ; and that little thing up at 
Dalrugas is a tender bit creature. She has blossomed like 
the flowers when she has been let alone, and never lost 
heart, though she has had many a dull day. Do not cross 


8S8 


the lassie above what she is able to bear. If youVe still 
against the man she likes herself, for the love of God, 
Robert Ramsay, force no other upon her, as you hope to 
be saved ! ” 

The old minister was considerably moved, but this did 
not perhaps express itself in the most dignified way. What 
with the fervor of his mind, and the heat of the fire, and 
the little unusual exertion, the perspiration stood in great 
drops on his brow. 

‘‘ This is a very remarkable appeal, Blythe,” said Sir 
Robert. “Z force another man upon her ! Granted there 
is one she likes herself, as you seem so sure — tliough I 
admit nothing of my own knowledge — am I a man to force 
a husband down any woman’s throat ? ” 

‘‘ I will beg your pardon humbly if I’m wrong,” said Mr. 
Blythe, subdued, wiping the moisture from his face, ‘‘ but 
if you think a moment, you will see that appearances are 
against you. We heard of your arriving in a hurry with 
a young gentleman in your train ; and then there came the 
news Miss Lily was ill — she that had stood out summer 
and winter against that solitude and never uttered a 
word — that she should just droop the moment that it might 
.have been thought better things were coming, and com- 
pany and solace — Sir Robert, I ask you ” 

“ To believe that it was all out of terror of me ! ” cried 
Sir Robert, who had risen up and was pacing angrily about 
the room. “ Upon my word, Blythe, you reckon on an old 
soldier’s self-command above what is warranted ! Me, her 
nearest relation, that have sheltered and protected her all 
her life — do 3^011 mean to insinuate that Lily is ill and has 
a brain-fever out of dread of me? ” 

‘‘ If you brought another man to her, knowing her wishes 
were a different way, and bid her take him or be turned 
out of your doors ! ” 

Sir Robert was not a man who feared Siuy thing. He 
stood before the minister’s very face, and swore an oath 
that would have blown the very roof off the house had Mr. 
Douglas, the assistant and successor, sat in that chair. 


m 


Mr, Blythe was a man of robust nerves, yet it impressed 
even him. I force a young man down a lassie’s throat ! ” 
cried Sir Robei l in great wrath, indignation, and furious 
derision. Me make matches or mar them ! Is’t the 
decay of your faculties, Blythe, your old age, though you’re 
not much older than I am, or what is it that makes you 
launch such an accusation at me ? ” 

There’s nothing decayed about me but my legs,” said 
the old minister with half a jest. ‘‘ I’ll beg your pardon 
heartily. Sir Robert, if it’s not true.” 

“ You deserve no explanations at my hands,” said the 
other, “ but I’ll give them for the sake of old times. The 
young man was a chance acquaintance for a week’s shoot- 
ing. I’ll perhaps never see him again, nor did he ever set 
eyes on Lily. And I have not exchanged a word with her 
since I came back. She knows me not — from you, or from 
Adam. Blythe, she is very ill, the poor lassie. She knows 
neither night nor day.” 

“Lord bless us!” said the minister, and then he put’ 
forth his large soft liand. “I beg your pardon,” he said. 
“ See how little a thing makes a big lie and slander when 
it’s taken the wrong color. I was deceived, but I hope 
you’ll forgive. In whose hands is she? what doctor? 
There’s no great choice here.” 

“ A man from the other side of the water,” said Sir 
Robert in the old phraseology of the countryside. 
“ Macalister, I think.” 

“Well, it’s the best you can do here. Our man’s a 
cleverer man, if you could ever be sure of finding him with 
his head clear. But Macalister is an honest fellow. I 
would not say but I would have a man from Edinburgh if 
it was me.” 

“ Do you think so ? ” said Sir Robert. 

“ If it was my Eelen — Lord, it’s no one, but half-a-dozen 
men I’d have from Edinburgli before I’d see her slip through 
my fingers. But there’s nothing like your own very flesh 
and blood.” 

“I will write at once! ” cried Sir Robert. 


330 


“ I would send a man — the post’s slow. I would send a 
man by the coach that leaves to-night ; for an hour lost 
you might repent all the days of 3^0111* life, Robert Ramsay,” 
said the minister, once more grasping and holding fast in 
his large, limp, but not unvigorous hand the other old 
gentleman’s firm and hard one. Just bear with me for 
another word. If she’s hanging between life and death — 
and you know not what may happen — and if there is a 
man in Edinburgh slie would rather see than smy doctor, 
for the love of God, man, don’t do things by halves, but 
send for him, too.” 

What the deevil do you mean with your ‘ man in 
Edinburgh ’?” Sir Robert said, with a shout, drawing his 
hand forcibly away. 

He rode home upon Rory, much discomfited and dis- 
turbed. It is scarcely too much to say that he had for- 
gotten much, or almost all, about Ronald Ilimsden in the 
long interval that had occurred, during which he was fully 
occupied with his own life, and indifferent to what took 
place elsewhere. He had sent Lil}^ off to Dalrugas to free 
her from the assiduities of a young fellow who was not a 
proper match for her. That is how Sir Robert would have 
explained it ; and he had never entertained a doubt that, 
what with the fickleness of youth and the cheerful company 
about, Lily had forgotten her unsuitable suitor long ago. 
But to have it even imagined, by the greatest old fool that 
ever was, that Lily’s terror of being obliged by her uncle 
to accept another man had upset her very brain and 
brought on a deadly fever was too much for any man to 
bear. And old Blythe was not an old fool, though he had 
behaved like one. If he thought so, other people would 
think so, and he — Robert Ramsay, General, K. C. B., a 
man almost as well known as the Prince of Wales him- 
self, a member of the best clubs, an authority on every 
social usage — he, the venerated of Edinburgh, the familiar 
of London — he would be branded, in a miserable hole in the 
country, with the character of a domestic tyrant, with the 
still more contemptible character of a match -maker, like 


331 


any old woman ! Sir Robert’s rage and annoyance were 
increased by tlie consciousness that be was not himself 
cutting at all a dignified figure on the country road 
mounted upon Rory, for whom his legs were too long 
(though he was not a tall man) and his temper too short. 
Rory tossed his shaggy head to the winds, and did battle 
with his master, when the pace did not please him. He all 
but threw the old gentleman, who was famed for his horse- 
manship. And it was in the last phase of exasperation, 
having dismounted, and, with a blow of his light switch, 
sent Rory careering home to his stable riderless, that Sir 
Robert encountered the doctor returning from his morning’s 
visit. Mr. Macalister’s face was grave. He turned back 
at once, and eagerly, desiring, he said, a few minutes’ 
conversation. “ I cannot well speak to you with your 
people and those women always about.” 

‘‘ I am afraid, then,” said Sir Robert, “ you have some- 
thing very serious to say.” 

“ Maybe — and maybe not. In the first place there are 
indications this morning of a change — we will hope for the 
better. The pulse has fallen. There’s been a little nat- 
ural sleep. I would say in an ordinary subject, and with 
no complications, that perhaps, though we must not just 
speak so confidently at the first moment, the turn had 
taken place.” 

‘‘ I’m delighted to hear it!” cried Sir Robert. It was 
really so great a relief to him that he put out his hand in 
sudden cordiality. “I will never forget my obligations to 
you, Macalister. You have given me the greatest relief. 
When the turn has really come, there is nothing, I’ve 
always heard, but great care wanted — care and good food 
and good air.” 

That was just what I wanted to speak to you about. 
Sir Robert,” said the doctor, with one of those little un- 
necessary coughs that mean mischief. ‘‘ Good air there 
is — she could not have better ; and good food, for I’ve always 
heard your housekeeper is great on that ; and good nurs- 
ing — well, yon woman, that is, your niece’s maid, Bauby or 


382 


Beenie, or whatever they call her, is little more than a fool, 
but she’s a good-hearted idiot, and sticks to what she’s 
told — when there’s nobody to tell her different. So we 
may say there’s good care. But when that’s said, though 
it’s a great deal, every thing is not said.” 

“Ay,” said Sir Robert, “ and what may there be beyond 
that?” He had become suspicious after his experiences, 
though it did not seem possible that from such a quarter 
there should come any second attack. 

“I’m very diffident,” said the doctor in his strong 
Northern accent, with his ruddy, weather-beaten coun- 
tenance cast down in his embarrassment, “ of mentioning 
any thing that’s not what ye might call strictly profes- 
sional, or taking advantage of a medical man’s poseetion. 
But when a man has a bit tender creature to deal with, like 
a flower, and that has just come through a terrible illness, 
the grand thing to ask will be. Sir Robert, not if she has 
good food and good nursing, which is what is wanted in 
most cases, but just something far more hard to come by 

— if she’s wanting to live ” 

“ Wanting to live ! ” cried Sir Robert. “ What nonsense 
are you speaking ? A girl of that age ! ” 

“It’s just precisely that age that fashes me. Older folk 
have got more used to it : living’s a habit with the like of 
us. We just find we must go on, whatever happens ; but 
a young lass is made up of fancies and veesions. She sa3’^s 
to herself : ‘ I would like better a bonnie green turf in the 
kirkyard than all this fighting and striving,’ and just fades 
away because she has no will to take things up again. I’ve 
seen cases like that before now.” 

“ And what’s my part in all this ? ” cried Sir Robert. 
“You come to me with v^our serious face, as if I had some 
hand in it. What can I do ? ” 

“Well, Sir Robert,” said the doctor, “that is what I 
cannot tell. I’m not instructed in your affairs — nor do I 
wish to be ; but if there is any thing in this 3"Oung lady’s 
road that crosses her sorely — the state of the brain that 
made this attack so dangerous evidently came from some 


333 


mental shock — if it’s within the bounds of possibility that 
you can give in to her, do so, Sir Robert. I arn giving 
you a doctor’s advice — not a private man’s that has nothing 
ado with it. If you can give her her own way, which is dear 
to us all, and more especially to women folk, give it to her. 
Sir Robert ! It will be her best medicine. Or if you can- 
not do that, let her think you will do it — let her think you 
will do it ! It’s lawful to deceive even in a case like this 
— to save her life.” 

“ You are trying to make me think, doctor, that my 
niece has been pretending to be ill all this time in order to 
get her own way.” 

‘‘ You may think that if you like. Sir Robert. It’s a 
pretending that has nearly cost you a funeral, and I will 
not say may not do so yet — but me, out of my own line, my 
knowledge is very imperfect. You know your own affairs 
best. But you cannot say I have not warned you of the 
consequences,” Dr. Macalister said. 

All the world seemed in a conspiracy against Sir Robert. 
He took off his hat formally to the doctor, who responded, 
somewhat overawed by such a solemn civility. What was 
it that this man, a stranger, supposed him to be doing to 
Lily ? It was ridiculous, it was absurd ! first old Blythe, 
and then the doctor. He had never done any harm to 
Lily; he had stopped a ridiculous love affair, a boy and 
girl business, with a young fellow who had not a penny. 
He did not mean his money to go to fit out another lot of 
long-legged Lumsdens, a name he could not bear. Ro, he 
had done no more than was his right, which he would do 
again to-morrow if necessary. But then in the meantime 
here was another question. Her life, a lassie’s life ! Noth- 
ing was ever more ridiculous : her life depending on what 
lad she married, a red-headed one, or a black-headed one, 
the silly thing ! But nevertheless it seemed it was true. 
Here was the doctor, a serious man, and old Blythe, both 
in a story. Well, if she w^ere dying for lier lad, the foolish 
tawpy, he would have to see what could be done. To 
think of a Ramsay, the last of his race, following her pas- 


334 


sions like that! But it would be some influence from the 
other side, from the mother, James’s wife, who, he had 
always heard, was not over- wise. 

He was turning over these thoughts in his mind as he 
approached close to the house, when he was suddenly 
aware of some one flying out toward him with arms ex- 
tended and a lock or two of red hair dropped out of all 
restraint and streaming in the wind. Beenie had waited 
and watched and lived half in a dream, never sleeping, 
scarcely eating, absorbed in that devotion which has no 
bounds, for the last six weeks. Her trim aspect, her care- 
ful neatness, her fresh and cheerful air, had faded in the 
air of the sick room. Combs do not hold nor pins attach 
after such a long vigil. She flew out, running wildly 
toward him with arms extended and hair streaming until, 
unable to stop herself, she fairly ran into the old gentle- 
man’s arms. 

‘‘ Oh, Sir Robert,” cried Beenie, gasping and trying to 
recover her breath, but too far gone for any aj^ology, 
“ she’s come to herself ! She’s as weak as water, and 
white as death. But she’s come to herself and she’s askin’ 
for you. She’s crying upon you and no to be silenced. 
‘ I am wanting Uncle Robert, I am wanting Uncle Robert! ’ 
No breath to speak, and no strength to utter a voice, but 
come to hersel’, come to hersel’ ! And, oh ! the Lord 
knows if it’s for death or life, for none of us can tell!” 


CHAPTER XXXVII 

When Sir Robert went in somewhat reluctantly to 
Lily’s room — for he was not accustomed to illness, and did 
not know what to do or say, or even how to look, in a sick 
room — he found her fully conscious, very white, very worn, 
her eyes looking twice their usual size and full of that 
wonderful translucent clearness which exhaustion gives. 
Her face, he did not know why, disposed the old gentle- 


335 


man to shed tears, though he was very far indeed from 
having any inclination that way in general. There was 
a smile upon it, a smile of wistful appeal to him, such 
a claim upon his sympathy and help as perhaps no other 
human creature had ever made before. 

“Uncle!” she cried, holding out two thin hands which 
seemed whiter than the mass of white linen about her. 
“ Uncle Robert ! oh ! are you there ? I have been an ill 
bairn to you, Uncle Robert. I have not been faithful nor 
true. You sent me here for my good, and I’ve turned it to 
harm. But you’re my only kin and my only friend, and 
all that I have in the world.” 

“ Lily, my dear, compose yourself, my poor lassie. I am 
not blaming you : why should I blame you? When you 
were ill, what could you do but lie in your bed and be taken 
care of ? Woman, have ye no sense ? She is not fit yet to 
be troubled with visits ; you might have seen that! ” 

“ Oh, Sir Robert, and so I did ! But how could I cross 
her when she just said without ceasing : ‘I want my uncle. 
I want to see my uncle! ’ She was not to be crossed, the 
doctor said.” 

“It was not Beenie’s fault.” Lily stretched out her 
hands till they reached her uncle’s, who stood by her bed- 
side, yet as far off as he could, not to appear unkind. He 
was a little horrified by the touch of those hot hands. She 
threw herself half out of the bed to reach him, and caught 
his hard and bony old hand, so firm still and strong, between 
those white quivering fingers, almost fluid in their softness, 
which enveloped his with a sudden heat and atmosphere, 
so strange and unusual that he retreated still a step, 
though he could not withdraw his hand. 

“Uncle Robert, you will not forsake me !” Lily cried. 
“ I have only you now, I have only you. I have been ill 
to you, but, oh, be good to me ! I am a very lonely woman. 
I have nobody. I have put my trust in — other things, and 
they have all failed me ! I’ve had a long dream and now 
I’ve awakened. Uncle Robert, I have nobody but you in 
all the world! ” 


336 


Now, Lily, you must just compose yourself, my dear. 
Who thought of forsaking you ? It is certain that you are 
my only near relation. Your father was my only brother. 
What would ail me at 3^011 ? My poor lassie, just let your- 
self be covered up, and put your arms under the clothes 
and try if you cannot sleep a little. A good sleep would 
be the best thing for her, Robina, wouldn’t you say? 
Compose yourself, compose yourself, my dear.” 

Lily still clung to his hand, though he tried so hard to 
withdraw it from her hold. And I will be different,” she 
said. ‘‘ You will never need to complain of me more. 
My visions and my dreams they are all melted away, like 
the snow yon winter-time, when my head was just carried 
and I did not know what I was doing. Oh, I have been 
ill to you, ill to you ! Eaten your bread and dwelt in your 
house and been a traitor to you. If they tell you, oh. 
Uncle Robert, do not believe I was so bad as that. I never 

meant it, I never intended It was a great delusion, 

and it is me that has the worst to bear.” 

“ Robina ! ” cried Sir Robert, ‘‘ this will never do. What 
disjointed nonsense has the poor thing got into her head ? 
She will be as bad as ever if you do not take care. No 
more of it, no more of it, Lil3^ You’ve been very ill ; you 
must be quiet, and don’t trouble your head about any thing. 
As for your old uncle, he will stand by you, my poor 
lassie, whatever you may have done — not that I believe 
for a moment you have done an}^ thing.” He was greatly 
relieved to get his hand free. He went so far as to cover 
her shoulders with the bedclothes, and to give a little pat 
upon the white counterpane. Poor little thing ! Her head 
was not right yet. Great care must be taken of the poor 
lassie. He had heard they were fond of accusing them- 
selves of all kinds of crimes after an attack of this sort. 

‘‘ I suppose the doctor will be coming to-day?” he said to 
Beenie as he hastily withdrew toward the door. 

‘‘It’s very near his hour. Sir Robert.” 

“ That’s well, that’s very well! Keep her as quiet as you 
can, that’s the great thing, and tell her from me that she is 


337 


not to trouble her head about any thing — about any thing, 
mind,” said Sir Robert with an emphasis which had no 
real meaning, though it awakened a hundred alarms in 
Beenie’s mind. She thought he must have been told, he 
must have found out something of the history of these past 
months. But, indeed, the old gentleman knew nothing at 
all, and meant nothing but to express, more or less in the 
superlative, his conviction that poor Lily was still under 
the dominion of her delusions, and that it was her fever, 
not herself, which brought from her lips these incompre- 
hensible confessions. He understood that it was often so 
in these cases ; probably, if he had let her go on, she would 
have confessed to him that she had tried to murder — 
Dougal, say, or somebody else equally likely. The only 
thing was to keep her quiet, to impress upon her that she 
was not to trouble her head about any thing, not about 
any thing, in the strongest way in which that assurance 
could be put. 

Lily lay quite still for a long time after Sir Robert had 
escaped from the room. She was very weak and easily 
exhausted, but happily the weakness of both body and 
brain dulled, except at intervals, the active sense of misery, 
and even the memory of those events which had ravaged 
her life. She was still quite quiet when the doctor came, 
and smiled at him with the faint smile of recovered con- 
sciousness and intelligence, though with scarcely a move- 
ment as she lay on her pillows, recovered, yet so prostrated 
in strength that she lay like one cast up by the waves, half 
dead, unable to struggle or even to lift a finger for her own 
help. A much puzzled man was the doctor, who had 
brought her successfully through this long and dreadful 
illness, but whose mind had been sorely exercised to 
account for many things which connected this malady with 
what had gone before. That he divined a great deal of 
what had gone before there was little doubt ; but he had 
no light upon Lily’s real position, and his heart was sore 
for a young creature, a lady, in such sore straits, and with 
probably a cloud hanging over her which would spoil her 
22 


338 


entire life. And he was a prudent man, and asked no 
questions which he was not compelled to ask. Had it been 
a village girl he would have formed his conclusions with 
less hesitation, and felt less deeply ; but it was a very 
different matter with Sir Robert Ramsay’s niece, who 
would be judged far more severely and lose much more 
than any village maiden was likely to do. Poor girl ! he 
tried as best he could, like a good man as he was, to save 
her as much as possible even from the suggestion of any 
suspicion. What has she been doing ? You have 
allowed her to do too much,” he said. 

‘‘ She would see her uncle, doctor ; she just insisted that 
she would see Sir Robert. If I had crossed her in that, 
would it no have been just as bad ? ” 

The white face on the pillow smiled faintly and breathed, 
rather than said : It was my fault.” 

And he said she was not to trouble her head about 
ainy thing, not about ainy thing ^ doctor, and that was a 
comfort to her — she was so vexed, him coming for the 
first time to his ain house, and her no able to welcome 
him, nor do any thing for him.” 

‘‘ That’s a very small matter ; she must think of that no 
more. What you have to do now. Miss Ramsay, is just to 
think of nothing, to trouble your head about nothing, as 
Sir Robert judiciously says ; to take what you can in the 
way of nourishment, and to sleep as much as you can, and 
to think about nothing. I absolutely proheebit thinking,” 
he said, bending over her with a smile. She was so 
touching a sight in her great weakness, and with even 
his uncertain perception of what was behind and be- 
fore her, that the moisture came into the honest doctor’s 
eyes. 

Lily gave him another faint smile, and shook her head, 
if that little movement on the pillow could be called shak- 
ing her head, and then he gave Beenie her instructions, 
and with a perplexed mind proceeded to the interview 
with Sir Robert to which he had been summoned. He 
did not know what he would say to Sir Robert if his 


339 


questions were of a peiietfi-ating kind. But Sir Robert’s 
questions were not penetrating at all. 

“ She has been havering to me, poor lassie,” said the old 
gentleman, about being alone in the world and with 
nobody but me to look after her. It is true enough. We 
have no relations, either her or me, being the last of the 
family. But why should she think I would forsake her ? 
And she says she has been an ill bairn to me, and other 
things that have just no sense in them. But that’s a 
common thing, doctor ? Is it not quite a common thing 
that people coming out of such an illness take fancies that 
they have done all sorts of harm ? ” 

The commonest thing in the world,” said the doctor 
cheerfully. ‘‘Did she say she had stolen your gear, or 
broken into your strong-box ? ” 

“ There is no saying what she would have said if I had 
let her go on,” said Sir Robert, with a laugh, “ though, 
indeed, I was nearer crying than laughing to see her so 
reduced. But all that will come right in time ?” 

“It will all come right in time. She’s weaker than I 
like to see, and you must send for me night or day, at any 
moment, if there is any increase of weakness. But I hope 
better things. Leave her to the women : they’re very 
kind, and not so silly as might reasonably be expected. 
Don’t go near her, if I might advise you. Sir Robert.” 

“ Indeed, I will obey you there,” said the old gentleman; 
“ no fear of that. I can do her no good, poor thing, and 
why should I trouble both her and myself with useless 
visits ? No, no, I will take care of that.” 

And the doctor went away anxious, but satisfied. If 
there was a story to tell, it w^as better that the poor girl 
should tell it at least when she was full mistress of her- 
self — not now, betrayed by her weakness, when she might 
say what she would regret another time. 

But Lily asked no more for Sir Robert. It was but 
the first impulse of her suddenly awakened mind. She 
relapsed into the weakness which was all the greater for 
that brief outburst, and lay for days conscious, and so far 


340 


calm that slie bad no strength for agitatioi), often sleep- 
ing, seldom thinking, wrapped by nature in a dream of 
exhaustion, through which mere emotion could not pierce. 
And thus youth and the devoted attendance of her nurses 
brought her through at last. It was October when she 
first rose from her bed, an advance in recovery which the 
women were anxious to keep back as long as possible, 
while the doctor on the other hand pressed it anxiously. 

She will lose all heart if she is kept like this, with no 
real sign of improvement,” he said. “ Get her up ; if it’s 
only for an hour, it will do her good.” 

‘‘It will bring it all back,” said Beenie in despair. She 
stopped herself next moment with a terrified glance at 
him ; but he knew how to keep his own counsel. And he 
gave no further orders on this subject. Lily, however, 
was not to be restrained. When she was first led into the 
drawing-room, she went to the window and looked out 
long and with a steadfast look upon the moor. It had 
faded out of the glory of heather which had covered it 
everywhere when she last looked upon that scene. Nearly 
two months were over since that day, that wonderful day 
of fate. Lily looked out upon the brown heather, still 
with here and there a belated touch of color upon the 
end of the long stalks rustling with the brown husks of 
the withered bells. The rowan-trees gave here and there 
a gleam of scarlet or a touch of bright yellow in the 
scanty leaves, ragged with the wind, which were almost as 
bright as the berries. The intervals of turf were emerald 
green, beginning to shine with the damp of coming winter. 
The hills rose blue in the noonday warmth with that bloom 
upon them, like a breaking forth of some efflorescence 
responsive to the light, which comes in the still sunshine, 
disturbed by no flying breezes. Lily looked long upon the 
well-known landscape which she knew by heart in every 
variation, resisting with great resolution the endeavors of 
Beenie to draw her back from that perilous outlook. 

“ Oh, look nae mair, my bonnie leddy ! ” Beenie said. 
“ You’ve seen it mair than enough, that awfu’ moor ! ” 


841 


What ails you at tlie moor, Robina ?” Sir Robert said, 
coming briskly in. ‘‘You are welcome back, my dear ; you 
are welcome back to common life. Don’t stand and weary 
yourself ; I will bring you a chair to the window. I’m 
glad, Lily, that you’re fond of the moor.” 

Lily turned to him with the same overwhelming smile 
which had nearly made an end of Sir Robert before, which 
shone from her pale face and from her wide, lucid, liquid 
eyes, still so large and bright with weakness ; but she did 
not wait for him to bring her a chair to the window. She 
tottered to one that had been placed for her near the fire, 
which, however bright the day, was always necessary at 
Dalrugas. “ I am better here,” she said. She looked so 
fragile seated there opposite to him that the old gentle- 
man’s heart was moved. 

“ My poor lassie ! I would give something to see you 
as bright-faced and as light-footed as when you came here.” 

“ Ah, that’s so long ago,” she said. “ I was light- 
hearted, too, and perhaps light-headed then. I am not 
light in any way now, except, perhaps, in weight. It 
makes you very serious to live night and day and never 
change upon the moor.” 

“ Do you think so, Lily ? I’m sorry for that. I thought 
you were so fond of the moor. They told me you were 
out upon it when you were well, rambling and taking your 
pleasure all the day.” 

“Yes,” she said, “it’s always bonnie. The heather is 
grand in its time, and it’s fine, too, in the gray days, when 
the hills are all wrapped in their gray plaids, and a kind of 
veil upon the moor. But it cannot answer. Uncle Robert, 
when you speak, or give you back a look or say a word.” 

“That’s true, that’s true, Lily. I was thinking only 
that it’s a peaceful place, and quiet, where an old man like 
me can get his sleep in peace; though there’s that Dougal 
creature with his pails and ponj?- that is aye stirring by the 
skreigh of day.” 

“ The pony was a great diversion,” said Lily, “ and 
Dougal, too, who was always very kind to me.” 


342 


Kind ! It was his bounden duty, the least he could 
do. I would like to know how he would have stood 
before me if he had not been kind, and far more, to the 
only child of the old house! ” 

Thank you. Uncle Robert,” said Lily, for saying so. 
They were all kind, and far more than kind. They have 
just been devoted to me, and thought of nothing but to 
make me happy. You will think of that — in case that 
any thing should happen.” 

‘‘Lily!” said Sir Robert with an angry tone, “I’m 
thinking you’re both ungrateful and unkind yourself. 
God has spared you and brought you back out of a 
dreadful illness, and these two women have nursed you 
night and day, and though I could do little for you, 
having no experience that way, yet perhaps I’ve felt all 
the more. And here are you speaking of ‘ any thing that 
might happen,’ as if you had not just been delivered out 
of the jaws of death.” 

“ Yes, I am very grateful,” said Lily, holding out her 
thin hand, “ to both them and you. Uncle Robert, and 
most of all to you, for it was out of your way indeed ; but 
as for God, I am not sure that I am grateful to him, for 
he might have taken me out of all the trouble while he 
was at it, and that would have been the best for us all. 
But,” she added, looking up suddenly with one of her old 
quick changes of feeling and countenance, “ how should 
you think I meant d^dng ? There are many, many things 
that might happen besides that. I might go away, or you 
might send me away.” 

“ I’ll not do that, Lily.” 

“ How do you know. Uncle Robert ? You sent me 
away once before when you sent me here. You might do 

it again — or, what is more, I might ask you Oh, 

Uncle Robert, let me go away a little, let me leave the sight 
of it, and the loneliness that has broken my heart ! ” 
Lily put her transparent hands together and looked at him 
with a pathetic entreaty in her face. 

“ Go away! ” he said, startled, “as soon as I come here — 


343 


the first time you come into the drawing-room to ask 
that ! ” 

‘‘ It is true,” said Lily, it’s ungrateful, oh, it’s without 
heart, it’s unkind. Uncle Robert, as you say ; but only for 
a little while, till I get a little better. I will never get 
better here.” 

“ This is a great disappointment to me,” he said. ‘‘ I 
thought I would have you, Lily, to keep me company. 
I thought you would be my companion and take care of 
me for a year or two. I am not likely at my age to 
trouble any body for very long,” he added with a half-con- 
scious appeal for sympathy. 

“ And so 1 will,” said Lily ; ‘‘I will be your companion. 
I will be at your side to do whatever you please — to read or 
to write, to walk or to talk. I will look for nothing else in 
this world, and I will never leave you. Uncle Robert, and 
there is my hand upon that. But I must be well first,” she 
added rapidly. ‘‘ And I will never get well here. Oh, let 
me go ! If it was but for a week, for a fortnight, for two 
or three days. Is it not always said of ill folk that when 
they get better they must have a change ? Let me have 
a change. Uncle Robert ! I want to look out at some- 
thing that is not the moor. Oh, how long, how long, if 
you will only think of it, I have been looking at nothing 
but the moor ! I am tired, tired of the moor! Oh, I am 
wearied of it ! I have liked it well, and I will come back 
and like it again. But for a little while, uncle, only for 
a little while, let me go away from the moor.” 

Is it so long a time ? ” he said. I was not aware you 
had been here so long a time. Why, it is not two years ! 
If you think two years is a long time, Lily, wait till you 
know what life is, and that a year’s but a moment when 
you look back upon it.” 

“ It looks like a hundred years to me,” she said, “ and 
before I can look back as you do it will be a hundred years 
more. And how am I to bear them all without a break or 
a rest ? If I were even like you, a soldier marching here 
and there, with your colors flying and your drums beat- 


844 


ing ! blit what has a woman to do but to sit and tliink and 
count the days? Uncle Robert,” she said, putting her 
liand on his arm as he stood near her, with his back to the 
fire, I’m not unwilling at all to die. I would never 
have minded if it had been so. I would have asked for 
nothing but a warm green turf from the moor, and 
maybe a bush of heather at my feet. But it has not ended 
like that, which would liave been God’s doing — only I will 
never get well unless I get awa}^ unless I breathe other air ; 
and if you refuse me, that will be your doing! ” she cried 
with something of her old petulance and fire. 

‘‘Did the doctor say any thing about this change ?” Sir 
Robert asked Beenie, with a cloud upon his face. 

“ He said she was to be crossed in naething,” Beenie 
replied. 


CHAPTER XXXVIII 

When it was settled that Lily was to have the change 
upon which she insisted, her health improved day by day, 
and with the increase of her strength, or perhaps as the 
real fountain-head and cause of her increased strength, her 
elasticity of spirit returned to her. By one of those strange 
gifts of temperament which triumph over every thing that 
humanity can encounter, this young creature, overwhelmed 
by so many griefs — a deserted wife, a mother whose child 
had been torn from her, her secret life so full of incidents 
and emotion ending all at once in a blank — became in the 
added grace of her weakness and of the spirit and courage 
which overcame it as sweet a companion to her old uncle, 
as full of variety and freshness, as the heart could desire. 
He, indeed, had never known such company before. She 
had been younger by an age when she left him in Edin- 
burgh, less developed, half a child, at least in his eyes, 
and he had been surrounded by company and cronies of 
his own of a very different character. But now, in this 
lonely spot where there was nobody, Lily, rising from her 


345 


sick-bed, witli lier eyes still large in their white sockets, 
her hands still transparent, her touch and her step still 
tremulous with weakness, became his diversion, his delight, 
making the long lonely days short, and even the rain sup- 
portable when it swept against the narrow windows, and 
intensified the brightness of the fireside and the pleasant 
talk, or even, when there was no talk, the sense of com- 
panionship within. Sometimes Lily would fall asleep in 
the afternoon or at the falling of the day, unawares, in the 
feebleness of her convalescence, and perhaps these were 
the moments in which most of all the old man of the world 
felt completely what this companionship was. He would 
lay down his paper or his book and look at her — the light 
of the fire playing on her face, giving it a faint touch of 
rose, and dissimulating the deep shadows under the eyes — 
feeling to his heart that most intimate confidence and 
trust in him, the reliance, almost unconscious, of a child, the 
utter dependence and weakness which could put up no 
barriers of the conventional, nor stop to think what would 
be agreeable : these things found out secret crevices in Sir 
Robert’s armor of which neither he nor any one else had 
dreamed. The water stood in his eyes as he looked at her, 
saying “Poor lassie, poor little lassie!” secretly in his 
heart. She was as good company then, though she did not 
know it, as when she started from her brief sleep and ex- 
erted herself to make him talk, to make him laugh, to feel 
himself the most interesting of raconteurs and delightful 
of companions. Many people had flattered Sir Robert in 
his day — he had been important enough in much of his 
life for that — but he had never found flattery so sweet as 
Lily’s demands upon the stores of his long experience, her 
questions upon his history, her interest in what he told her. 
It was not only that she was herself such a companion as 
he had not dreamed of, but that he never had been aware 
before what excellent company he was himself. He almost 
grudged to see her growing stronger, though he rejoiced 
in it from the bottom of his old world -worn heart. 

“And so you are going to leave me, Lily — you’ve settled, 


346 


that Robina woman and you — and you’re off in two days 
seeking adventures?” 

Yes, uncle — in two days ; but only for a little while.” 

‘‘ Without a thought of an old man left desolate — upon 
the edge of the moor.” 

Yes, with a thought that is very pleasant — that there’s 
somebody there wanting me back ” — she paused a moment 
with a faint sigh and added : and that I am coming back 
to in a little while. And then, as for the moor, it is full of 
diversion. You’re never lonely watching the clouds and 
the shadows and all the changes : I have had much experi- 
ence of it. Uncle Robert — two years, that were sometimes 
long, long.” 

“ I never knew,” said Sir Robert, a little abashed, how 
lonely it was, Lily, and that all the old neighbors were gone. 
I pictured you surrounded with 3^oung folk, and as merry 
as the day was long.” 

“ It was not exactly that,” she said, with a smile ; and 
then her face changed, as it did from moment to moment, 
like the moor which she loved, yet hated — shadows flying 
over it as swift, as sudden, and as deep. ‘‘ But it’s all 
past, and why should we think more of it ? When I come 
back. Uncle Robert, we’ll be cheery, you and me together 
by the fireside all the winter through, and never ask 
whether there are neighbors or not — or other folk in the 
world.” 

‘‘ I would not go so far as tliat,” said the old gentleman. 
“We’ll get the world to come to us, Lily, a small bit at 
a time. But you have never told me where you are going 
when you leave me here.” 

“ To Edinburgh,” she said. 

“ To Edinburgh ! I thought you had consulted with the 
doctor, and were going to the seaside, or to the Bridge of 
Allan, or some of the places where invalids go.” 

“Uncle,” said Lily, “I have been two years upon the 
moor, and in all that time I have not got a new gown, nor 
a bonnet, nor any thing whatsoever. Oh, yes, we will go 
to the sea, or the Bridge of Allan, or to some place. But 


347 


we are not fit to be seen, neitlier Beenie nor me. You do 
not take these things into consideration. You think, wlien 
I speak to you like a rational creature, that I am above the 
wants of my kind ; but rational or not, a woman must 
always have some clothes to wear! ” 

Sir Robert laughed and clapped his hands. Bravo, 
Lily ! ” he cried. “ You cannot do better, my dear, than 
own you’re just a woman and are as fond of your finery as the 
rest. By all means, then, go to Edinburgh and fit yourself 
out ; but do not stay there, go out to Portobello, if you 
do not care to go farther, or a little more to the West, 
where it’s milder, and you will get a warm blink before 
the winter weather sets in. And that reminds me that you 
will want money, Lily.” 

“ A good deal of money. Uncle Robert,” she said, with a 
smile. ‘‘You know I have had none for two years.” 

It was with a sensation of shame that he heard her 
allusions to those two years, and perhaps Lily. was aware 
of it. She wanted money, she wanted freedom, and that 
lier steps should not be watched nor her movements con- 
strained. And the old gentleman was startled and humili- 
ated when he realized that his heiress, his only relation, his 
brother’s child, had been banished to this wilderness with- 
out a shilling in her pocket .or a friend to help her. He 
could not imagine how he could have forgotten so com- 
pletely her existence or her claims upon him and right to 
his support. He was glad to wipe that recollection from 
his own mind as well as hers by his liberality now. And 
Lily received from him an order upon his “man of busi- 
ness ” in Edinburgh for an amount which seemed to her 
almost fabulous — for she knew nothing of money, had 
never had any, nor required it, although when she retired 
to her room with that piece of paper in her hand which 
meant so much, the reflection of what might have happened 
and what she could have done had she only at any time dur- 
ing these two 3^ears possessed as much, or half as much, came 
upon her with almost a convulsive sense of opportunities 
lost. She flung herself upon Beenie’s shoulder when she 


348 


reached the safe shelter of her room, where it was no 
longer necessary to keep herself up and make a smile for 
her uncle. ‘‘ Oh, Beenie! ” she cried, if he had given me 
the half of that before, or the quarter ! how every thing 
might have been changed.” 

Oh, mem, my bonnie leddy,” cried Beenie, who never 
now addressed her mistress as Miss Lily, it’s little, little 
that siller can do! ” 

Anger flashed in Lily’s eyes. It could just have done 
every thing ! ” she said. ‘‘ Do you think I would have 
been put off and off if I could have put my hand in my 
pocket and taken the coach and gone, you and me, to see 
to every thing ourselves ? Oh ! many a time I have wished 
for it, and longed for it — but what could we do, you and 
me, and nothing, nothing to take us there? Ob, never 
say siller can do little! It might have spared us all that’s 
happened — think ! all that’s happened ! I might be think- 
ing now as I thought yon New Year’s time in the snow. 
I might be as sure and as full of trust. I might never 
have learned what it was to deceive and to be deceived. 
I might never have been a desolate woman without man or 
bairn — without my little bairn, my little baby! ” 

‘‘ Oh, my darlin’ leddy ! but you’ll get him again, you’ll 
get him again! ” cried Beenie, with streaming eyes. 

‘‘ I hope in God I shall,” said Lily, tearless, lifting her 
eyes and clasping her hands. “ I hope in God I shall, or 
else that he’ll let me just lay down my head and die! ” 

“He has raised you up from the very grave,” said 
Beenie. “We had nae hope, Katrin and me ; we had nae 
hope at all. Here she is hersel’ that will tell you. There 
was ae night — oh, come Katrin, come and bear me out — 
when you and me just stood over her, and kissed the 
bonnie white face on the white pillow, and wrung each 
other’s liands, and said : ‘ If the baby’s lost and her reason 
gane, God bless her, she’ll be better away.’ ” 

“ Whisht with your nonsense,” said Katrin ; “ that’s 
a’ past, and now we have nae such thoughts in our heads. 
But what will you do, my dear leddy, my bonnie leddy ? 


349 


Will ye bring him back here ? A fine thriving bairn like 
yon you canna hide him. The first day, the first night, 
and the secret would be parish news. I was frichtened 
out of my wits the first days for Dougal, who is not 
a pushing man, to do him justice, or one that asks ques- 
tions ; but with Sir Robert in the house, oh, mem, my 
bonnie de^r, what will ye do ? ” 

‘‘ I have never wanted to make any secret, Katrin,” Lily 
said. 

‘‘I ken that; but there will be an awfu’ deal to tell 
when once you begin. And the bairn he is an awfu’ 
startling thing to begin with. Do ye no think an auld 
gentleman like Sir Robert had better be prepared for it ? 
It would give him a shock. It might even hairm him in 
his health. I would take counsel about it. Oh, I would 
take counsel ! Do naething in a hurry, not to scandalize 
the country, nor to give our auld maister a fright that 
might do him harm.” 

To scandalize the country! ” said Lil}^, pale with anger. 
‘‘ Oh ! to think it’s me, me that she says that to ! Do, 
you think it is better to deceive every-body and be always 
a lie whatever way you turn ? ” 

“ Mem,” said Katrin, my dear, you’ll excuse me; I must 
just say the truth. It’s an awfu’ thing to deceive; as you 
say, and well I ken it was never your wyte. But the 
worst of it is that when you begin you cannot end. You 
just have to go on. I’m no saying one thing or another. 
It’s no my business, if it wasna that I just think more of 
you than one mortal creature should think of another. Oh! 
just take thought and take counsel ! The maister is an 
old man. You’ve beguiled him with your winsome ways 
just as you’ve beguiled us a’. Can I see a thing wrong 
you do, whatever it is ? And yet I have a glimmerin’ o’ 
sense between whiles. If he’s looking for you back to be 
his bonnie Lily and his companion, and syne sees you 
come in with a bairn in your arms and another man’s 
name, what will the auld man do ? Oh, mem, the dear 
bairn, God bless him, and grant that you may soon have 


350 


him in your airms ! But if you hold by the auld gentle- 
man and his life and comfort, for God’s sake take thought ! 
for that is in it, too.” 

There is nothing, nothing,” cried Lily, ‘Hhat should 
keep a mother from her bairn! You are a kind woman, 
Katrin, but you’ve never had a bairn. When once I 
get him here, how can I ever give him up again?” she 
said, straining her arms to her breast as if the child 
was within them. Beenie wept behind her mistress’s 
shoulder, overwhelmed with sympathy, but Katrin shook 
her head. 

When you see Mr. Lumsden there, and go over it 
all ” 

Lily’s face became instantly as if the windows of her 
mind had been closed up. Her lips straightened, her e^^es 
became blank. She said nothing, but turned away, not 
looking at either of them nor saying a word. And it was 
no me breathed his name or as much as thought upon 
him,” Beenie said a little later in an aggrieved tone, when 
she had rejoined Katrin down stairs. 

‘‘ It was me that breathed his name, and I’ll do it again 
till some heed is paid to what I say. We should maybe 
have refused yon day to be his witnesses. But being sae, 
Beenie, the burden is on you and me as well as on him. 
They should have owned each other and spoke the truth 
from that day. But now that it has all gone so far and 
no a whisper risen, and the countryside just as innocent as 
if they were two bairns playing, oh, I wouldna now just 
burst it all upon the auld man’s head ! He’s no an ill auld 
man. He’s provided for her all her life; he is very muckle 
taken up with her now, maybe in a selfish way, for he’s 
feeling his age and his mainy infirmities, and he’s wanting 
a companion. But, oh ! I would not burst it on him now ! 
He could never abide her man, and, to tell the truth, 
Beenie, I’m not that fond of him mysel’, and she, poor 
thing, has had a fearfu’ opening to her eyes. How could 
ye have the bairn here and no the father? Could she say 
to her uncle: ‘ I was very silly about him once and married 


351 


him, and now I canna abide him ’ ? Oh, no ! that is what 
she will never say.” 

And I hope she’ll never think it either,” Beenie said. 

‘‘Beenie,” said the other solemnly, ‘‘you are a real 
innocent if such a thing ever was.” 

“ No more than yoursel’,” said Beenie, indignant ; but 
she had to return to her mistress, and further discussion 
could not be held on this question. 

They went away on the second morning, which was 
a little frosty, though bright. The establishment had 
widened out by this time. Sir Robert was not a man to 
be driven to kirk or market in the little geeg, drawn at his 
wilful pleasure by Rory, which had answered all Lily’s 
purposes. There was now a phaeton and a brougham, and 
three or four horses accommodated tant Men que mol in 
the old stables, which had to be cleared of much rubbish 
and Dougal’s accumulations of j^ears before they were 
in a state to receive their costly inmates. It was in the 
brougham that Lily, wrapped up in every kind of shawl and 
comforter, drove with her maid to Kinloch-Rugas to take 
the coach, where the best places had been reserved for them. 
Beenie’s pride in this journey exceeded the anxiety with 
which her mind was full, in respect to her mistress’s health 
in the first place, and the many issues of their journey. 
But it was not a “ pride ” which met with much sympathy 
from her dear friends and fellow-servants. Dougal for his 
part stood out in the stable-yard carefully isolated from all 
possible connection with the new grooms and the new 
horses, though neither was he without a thrill of pride in 
the distinction of a kind of part-proprietorship with Sir 
Robert in these dazzling articles. He kept apart, however, 
with an air of conscious superiority to such innovations. 
“ I wish ye a good journey,” he said ; “ maybe it ’ll be 
warmer this fine morning in a shut-up carriage, but. Lord ! 
I would rather have Rory and the little geeg than all the 
coaches in England! ” 

Lily was thrilling with nervous excitement, scarcely able 
to contain herself, but she made an etfort to give a word 


352 


and a smile to the whilom arbiter of all the movements of 
Dalrugas. “ I would rather have you and Rory in the 
summer weather,” she said. ‘‘ If it is a warm day when I 
come back, you will come for me, Dougal.” 

“ Na, mem, no me ; we’re no grand enough now to carry 
leddies : which I wouldna care much for, for leddies, as 
ye ken, are whiles fantastic and put awfu’ burdens on a 
beast — but just because his spirit is broken with trailing 
peats from the hill, and visitors’ boxes from the toun. 
They’re sensitive creatures, pownies. I just begin to 
appreciate the black powny’s feelings now I see the effect 
upon my ain.” 

‘‘ He shall drive me when I come back,” said Lily, wav- 
ing her hand as the brougham flashed away, the coats of 
the horses shining in the frosty sunshine, and the carriage 
panels sending back reflections. It was certainly more 
comfortable than the geeg. But the light went out of 
Lily’s face as they left Dalrugas behind. The little color 
in her cheeks disappeared. She leaned back in her corner 
and once more pressed her arms against her breast. Oh, 
shall I find him ? shall I find him ? ” she cried. 

‘‘ You’ll do that — wherefore should you no do that ? ” 
said Beenie encouragingly. 

‘‘ He’ll be grown so big we will not know him, Beenie, 
and he will not know his mother ; that woman Margaret 
that took him away will have all his smiles — she will be 
the first face that he sees, now that he’s old enough to 
notice. Oh, my little bairn ! my little bairn ! ” 

‘‘A bairn that is two months auld takes but little notice, 
mem,” said Beenie, strong in her practical knowledge. 

You need not fash your head about that. They may 
smile, but if ye were to ask me the very truth, I wouldna 
hide from you that what they ca’ smiling is just in my 
opinion the ” 

“ If you say that word, I will kill you ! ” cried Lily. She 
laughed and then she cried in her excitement. “How will 
I contain myself ? how will I keep quiet and face the world, 
and the folk in the world, and every-body about, till the 


353 


moment comes — oh, the moment, Beenie ! — when I will get 
my baby into my arms ? ” 

“Eh, mem ! but you must not make yourseP sae awfu’ 
sure about that,” said Beenie. “We might not find them 
just at first — or he might have a little touch of the cauld, 
or maybe the thrush in his wee mouth, or measles, or some- 
thing. You must not make yourself so awfu’ sure.” 

“ He is ill ! ” cried Lily, seizing her in a fierce grip. “ He 
is ill, oh, you false, false woman, and you have never said 
a word to me ! ” 

“There is naething ill about him; he is just thriving like 
the flowers. But I canna bide when folk are so terrible 
sure. It seems as if you were tempting God.” 

“It’s you that are tempting me — to believe in nothing, 
neither Him nor women’s word. But what would make a 
woman deceive a baby’s mother about her own child ? A 
man might do it, that knows nothing about what that 
means ; but a woman never would do it, Beenie — a woman 
that has been about little babies and their mothers all her 
days ? ” 

“ No, mem, I never thought it,” said Beenie in dutiful 
response. 

At the coach, where they were received with all the 
greater honor on account of Sir Robert’s brougham, and 
the beautiful prancing horses, Helen Blythe met them. 
“ They would not let me come to see you,” she said, “It’s 
long, long, since I’ve seen you, Lily, and worn and white 
you’ve grown — but just as bonnie as ever : there comes up 
the color just as it used to do — but you must look stronger 
when you come back.” 

“ I am going away for that,” Lily said. 

“And it is just the wisest thing she could do,” said the 
doctor, who had come also to see her off. “ And stay away 
as long as you can, Miss Ramsay, and just divert yourself 
a little. You have great need of diversion after that long 
time at the old Tower.” 

“ She is not one that is much heeding diversion,” said 
Helen, looking at her affectionately. 

23 


354 


‘‘We’re all needing it whether we’re heeding it or no,” 
said the doctor. “ And if you will take my advice, you will 
just take a little pleasure to yourself, as you would take 
physic if I ordered it. Good-by, Miss Ramsay, and mind 
what I say.” 

“ He’s maybe right,” said Helen ; “ they say he’s a clever 
man. I know little about diversion. But, oh ! I would 
like to see you happy, Lily — that would be better than all 
the physic in the world.” 

“ Perhaps I will bring it back with me,” said Lily, with 
a smile. 


CHAPTER XXXIX 

It was not with a very easy mind that Ronald Lumsden 
had executed the great coup which had, so far as was 
concerned, such disastrous consequences. He had been 
deeply perplexed from the moment of the baby’s birth, 
nay, before that, as to what his future action was to be. 
It had been apparent to him from the first that the child 
could not remain at Dalrugas. Much had been ventured, 
much had been done, to all appearance successfully enough. 
Ho scandal had been raised in the countryside by his own 
frequent visits. What might be whispered in the cottages 
no one knew ; but, apart from such a possibility, nothing 
that could be called public, no rumor of the least importance, 
had arisen. Every thing was safe up to that point. And he 
was not much concerned even had there been any subdued 
scandal floating about. At any moment, should any crisis 
arise, Lily could be justified and set right. What could it 
matter, indeed, if any trouble of a moment should arise ? 
He was not indifferent to his wife’s good name. He con- 
sidered himself as the best guardian of that, the best judge 
as to how and when it should be defended. He had (he 
thought) the reins in his hands, the command of all the 
circumstances. If he should ever see the moment come 
when the credit of his future family should be seriously 


355 


threatened, and the position of Lily become an aifair of 
vital importance, he Avas prepared to make any sacrifice. 
The moment it became serious enough for that he was 
ready to act ; but in the meantime it was his to fight the 
battle out to the last step, and to defend her rights as her 
uncle’s heir, and to secure the fortune for her behalf and 
his own. He regarded the situation largely as from the 
point of view of a governor and supreme authority. As 
long as the circumstances could be managed, the world’s 
opinion suppressed or kept in abeyance, and the one sub- 
stantial and important object kept safe, what did a little 
imaginary annoyance matter, or Lily’s fantastic girlish 
notions about a house of her own, and a public appearance 
on her husband’s arm, wearing her wedding ring and calling 
herself Mrs. Lumsden ? He liked her the better for desir- 
ing all that, so far as it meant a desire to be always with 
him ; otherwise the mere promotion of being known as a 
married lady was silly and a piece of vanity, which did not 
merit a thought on the part of the arbiter of her affairs. 
All the little by-play about the house which could not be 
got till the term, etc., had been a jest to him, though it 
had been so serious to Lily. He had never for a moment 
intended that she should have that house. To keep her 
quiet, to keep her contented, Ronald did not stint at such 
a small matter as a lie. Between lovers, between married 
people, there must be such things. If a man intends to 
keep at the head of affairs, and yet to keep the Avoman, 
Avho has no experience and knows nothing of the Avorld, 
satisfied and happy, of course there must be little fictions 
made up and fables told. Lily Avould be the first to justify 
them when the necessity was over, Avhen the money Avas 
secured and their final state arrived at — a dignified life 
together, with every thing handsome about them. He had 
no compunctions, therefore, about the original steps. It 
might have been more prudent, perhaps, if they had not 
married at all, if they had Avaited till Sir Robert died and 
Lily was free, in the course of nature, to give her hand 
and her fortune Avhere she pleased. That, no doubt, was 


356 


a rash thing to do, but the wisest of men commit such 
imprudences. And, with the exception of that, Ronald 
approved generally of his own behavior. He did not 
find any thing to object to in his conduct of the matter 
altogether. 

But the baby put every thing out. The prospect, indeed, 
occupied Lily and kept her quiet and reasonable for a long 
time, but the moment he knew what was coming a new 
care came into Lumsden’s mind. A baby is not a thing to 
be hid. It was certain that nothing would induce Lily to 
part with it, or to be reasonable any longer. She would 
throw away the result of all his precautions, of all his 
careful arrangements, of his self-denial and thought, in a 
moment, for the sake of this little thing, which could 
neither repay her nor know wliat she was doing for it. 
Many an hour’s reflection, night and day, had he given to 
this subject without seeing any way out of it. With all 
his powers and gifts of persuasion he had not ventured 
even to hint to Lily the idea of sending away the child. 
Courage is a great thing, but sometimes it is not enough to 
face a situation of the simplest character. He could not 
do it. After the child arrived, when the inconveniences of 
keeping it there became apparent, he had thought it might 
perhaps be easier ; and many times he had attempted to 
arrange how this could be done, but never had succeeded 
in putting it into words. To do him justice, it was he who 
had sought out and chosen with the utmost care the nurse 
Marg’ret, in whose hands both mother and child would be 
safe, and he looked forward with that vague and foolish 
hope in some indefinite help to come which the wisest of 
men, when their combinations fail, still believe in, like the 
most foolish ; perhaps some suggestion might come from 
herself, who could tell ? some sense of the trouble and 
inconvenience arising in Lily’s own mind might assist him 
in disposing of the little intruder. Why do babies thrust 
themselves into the world so determinedly where they are 
not wanted ? Why resist the most eager calls and welcomes 
where they are? This confusing question was no joke to 


357 


Ronald. It made him hate this meddling baby, though 
he was not without a young father’s sense of pride and 
satisfaction, too. 

He had instructed Marg’ret fully beforehand in the 
part she might be called upon to play, though he could 
not tell her either how or when he would accomplish the 
purpose which had gradually grown upon him as a neces- 
sity. In these circumstances, while he yet pondered and 
turned every thing over in his mind, failing as yet to per- 
ceive any way in which it could be accomplished, the 
suddenness of Sir Robert’s coming, which he learned 
by accident, was like sudden light in the most profound 
darkness. Here was the necessity made ready to his 
hands. Lily could not doubt, could not waver ; whatever 
might happen afterward, it was quite clear Sir Robert could 
not be greeted on his first arrival by the voice of an 
infant — an infant which had no business to be there, and 
whose presence would have to be accounted for on the 
very threshold, without any preliminary explanation — in 
the face, too, of his friends whom he brought with him, 
revealing all the secrets of his house. This was a chance 
which made Ronald himself, with all his coolness, shiver. 
And Lily, still in her weakness, not half recovered — what 
might the effect be upon her? It might kill her, he 
decided ; for her own sake, in her own defence, not a 
moment was to be lost. The reader knows how he flashed 
into his wife’s room in haste, but not able even then, in 
face of Lily’s perfect calm, and utter inability to conceive 
the real difficulty of the situation, to suggest it to her, 
accomplished his design, secretly leaving her — not even 
then with any unkind intention, very sorry for her, but 
not seeing any other way in which it was to be done — to 
discover her loss and bear it as she might. He was any 
thing but happy as he drove away with the traitor woman 
by his side and the baby hidden in its voluminous wrap- 
pings. Marg’ret was not such a traitor either as she 
seemed. She had been made to believe that, though no 
parting was to be permitted to agitate the young mother. 


858 


Lily, too, was aware, and had consented to this proceeding. 
“ The poor little lassie, the poor wee thing! ” Marg’ret had 
said, even while wrapping up the baby for its journey ; 
and slie had slipped out into the darkness and waited at 
the corner for the geeg with a heavy heart. 

It startled Luinsden very much that no wail of distress, 
no indignant outcry, came from Lily on discovering her 
loss. These were not the days of frequent communica- 
tions. People had not yet acquired the habit of constant 
correspondence. They were accustomed to wait for news, 
with no swift possibility of a telegram or even a penny 
post to make them impatient ; not, perhaps, that they would 
have grudged — certainly not that Ronald would have 
grudged — the eightpence which was then, I tliink, tlie 
price of the conveyance of a letter from one end of Scot- 
land to the other, but that they had not acquired the 
custom of frequent writing. When no protest, no remon- 
strance, no passionate outcry, reached him for a week or 
two after the event, Lumsden became exceedingly alarmed. 
He said to himself at first that it was a relief, that Lily 
herself recognized the necessity and had yielded to it ; but 
he did not really believe this, and as the daj^s went on, 
genuine anxiety and terror were in his mind. Had it killed 
her ? Had his Lily, in her weakness, bowed her head and 
died of this outrage ? the worst, he now felt in every fibre 
of his being, to which a woman could be subjected. He 
wrote, enclosing his letter to Beenie ; then he wrote to 
Beenie herself, entreating her to send him a line, a word. 
But Lily was unconscious of every thing, and Beenie of all 
that did not concern her mistress, when these letters ar- 
rived. They were not even opened until Lily was conva- 
lescent, and then Beenie by her mistress’s orders, in her 
large sprawling handwriting, and with many tears, replied 
briefly to the three or four anxious demands for news which 
had arrived one after the other. Beenie wrote : 

Sir : My mistress has been at the point of death with 
what they call a brain-fever. It has lasted the longest and 


359 


been the fiercest that ever the doctor saw. She is coming 
round now — the Lord be praised — but very slow. She has 
but one thought — you will know well what that is — and 
will never rest till she has got satisfaction, night or 
day. 

I am, sir, 

“ Your obedient servant, 

Robina Rutherfoed. 

‘‘P. S. — I was to tell you the last part, for it is not 
from me.” 

There was not much satisfaction to be got from this 
letter, and, indeed, his mind got little relief from any thing, 
and the time of Lily’s illness was a time of mental trouble 
for the husband, which was not, perhaps, more easy to bear. 
Had he lost her altogether ? It seemed like that, though 
he could not think it possible that the child at least should 
be allowed to drop, or that the fever could have made her 
forget, which it was evident she had not done in his own 
case. The courts had begun again, and Lumsden was 
more occupied than he had ever been in his life. He 
made one furtive visit to Kinloch-Rugas, where he heard 
something of Lily’s state, and engaged Helen Bl3^the to 
communicate with him any thing that reached her ears. 
But no one was allowed to see her in her illness, and this 
gave him small satisfaction. He did not dare to go near 
the house, which Sir Robert guarded more effectually than 
a squadron of soldiers. There was nothing for him to do 
but to wait. The unusual rush of occupation which came 
upon him with the beginning of the session had a certain 
irony in it, that irony which is so often apparent in life. 
Was he about to become a successful man now that the 
chief thing which made life valuable was slipping out of 
his grasp ? He went about his business briskly, and rose 
to the claims of his business and profession, so that he 
began to be mentioned in the Parliament House and among 
his contemporaries, and even by elder men of still more 
importance, who said of him that young Lumsden, old 


360 


Pontalloch’s son, though he had hung fire at first, was now 
beginning at last to come to the front. Was it possible 
that this was coming to him, this exhilarating tide of suc- 
cess, just at the moment when Lily, who would have stood 
by him in evil fortune and never failed him, had dropped 
away from his side ? To do him justice, he had never 
thought of success, of wealth, of prosperity, without her 
to share it. And he did not understand it now. He could 
not understand how even a woman, however ignorant or 
unreasonable by nature, could be so narrow as not to see 
that all he had done had been for the best. The last step, 
no doubt, might be allowed to be hard upon her, but what 
else was possible ? Could she for a moment have enter- 
tained the idea of keeping the child — a baby that cried 
and made a noise, and could not be hid — at Dalrugas ? 
Even if there had been no word of Sir Hobert, it still 
would have been impossible ; and he had done no more 
than he had a right to do. He had considered, and con- 
sidered most carefully — he did himself but justice in this — 
what as her head and guardian it was best for him to do. 
It was his duty as well as his right ; and the responsibility 
being upon him as the husband, and not upon her as the 
wife, he had done it. Was it possible that Lily — a creat- 
ure full of intelligence on other matters, who even now 
and then picked up a thing quicker than he did himself — > 
should not have sense enough and judgment enough to 
see this? But these thoughts, though they mingled with 
all he did, and accompanied him night and day, did not 
make things any better. The fact that she had taken no 
notice of him all this time, that she had not written to 
him even to upbraid him, that she had not even asked 
him for news of the child, was very heavy on Lumsden’s 
mind — almost, I had said, upon his heart, for he still had 
a heart, notwithstanding all that had come and gone. 
Perhaps it might have relieved him a little had he known 
that news had been obtained of the child, though not 
through him. Marg’ret — who, though she had been un- 
faithful to the young mother, to whom at the same time 


361 


slie had been so kind, certainly had a heart, which smote 
her much as being a party to a proceeding which became 
more and more doubtful the more she thought of it — had 
written twice to Beeiiie, altogether superior to the question 
of the eightpence to pay, to assure her of the baby’s 
health. He was well, he was thriving, his mother would- 
not know him he had grown so big and strong, and 
Marg’ret hoped that ere long she would put him, just a 
perfect beauty, into his mother’s arms. These queer mis- 
sives, sealed with a wafer and a thimble, had been better 
than all the eloquent letters in the world to Lily. When 
those from Ronald, full of excellent reason and all the 
philosophy that could be brought to bear on the circum- 
stances, were given to her on her recovery, they had but 
made her wound more bitter and her resentment more 
warm ; but the nurse’s letters had given her strength. 
They had made her able to charm and please her uncle; 
they had enabled her to face life again and fight her way 
back to a certain degree of health ; they had sustained her 
in her journey, and this first set out upon the world to 
manage her own affairs, which was as novel to her as if 
she had been fifteen, instead of twenty-five. They wanted 
only one thing — they had no address. The postmark was 
Edinburgh, but Edinburgh was (to these inexperienced 
women) a very wide word. 

What Lily had intended to do when she had found out 
Marg’ret and recovered her child — as she was so confident 
of doing — I cannot tell. She did not herself know. This 
was the first step to be taken : every thing else came a 
world behind. Whether she was to carry the baby back 
in her arms, to beard Sir Robert with it and make her 
explanation — though with the conviction that she would 
then be turned from the door of her only home forever — 
or whether she intended, having escaped, to do what 
always seems so easy and natural to a girl’s imagination : 
to fly away somewhere and hide herself with her child, and 
be fed by the ravens, like the prophet — she herself did not 
know and I cannot tell. The only thing certain was that 


362 


she thought of the little house among the Edinburgh roofs — 
that house which could only be got at the term, and which 
it now made her heart sick to think of — no more. Had 
she found the door open for her and every thing ready 
Lily would have turned her back on that open door. She 
could not endure the thought of it; she could not even 
think of the time when it would have been paradise to her, 
the realization of her dearest hopes. In the depths of her 
injured soul she would have desired to find her child with- 
out even making her presence known to her husband. 
She had no desire even to see him again — he seemed to 
have alienated her too completely for any repentance. 
And up to this moment, her mind being altogether occu- 
pied by her child, none of those relentings toward those 
whom we have loved and who have wronged us, which 
make the heart bleed, had come upon Lily. She thought 
of nothing but her child, her child ! to have him again in her 
arms, to possess him again, the one thing in the world that 
was entirely her own, altogether her own. The fact that 
this was not so, that the child was not and never could be 
entirely her own, did not disturb Lily’s mind. Had she 
been reminded of it she would not have believed. She 
thought, as every young mother thinks in the wonderful 
closeness of that new relation and the sense of all it has 
cost her, that to this at least there could be no contradic- 
tion and no doubt — that her baby was hers, hers ! and that 
no one in the world had the right to him that she had. It 
was for him that she hurried, as much as any one could 
hurry in these days, to Edinburgh, grudging every mo- 
ment of delay — the time of changing the horses, which she 
felt inclined to get out and do herself, so slow, so slow was 
every-body concerned ; the time for refreshments, as if 
one wanted to eat and drink when one was hastening to 
recover one’s child. But however slow a journey is the 
end of it comes at last. It was a comfort to Lily that she 
knew where to go to — to the house of a very decent woman, 
known to Beenie, who kept lodgings, and where she could 
be quite quiet, out of the way of her former friends. But 


868 


they arrived only in the evening, and there was another 
long night to be gone through before any thing could be 
done. 


CHAPTER XL 

Robina had become more and more anxious and uneasy 
as they approached Edinburgh. She did not seem to 
share the anxious elation with which her mistress hailed 
the well-known features of the country, and recognized the 
Castle on its rock, and the high line of houses against the 
sky. Lily was in a state of feverish excitement, but it was 
mingled with so many hopes and anticipations that even 
her anxiety was a kind of happiness. “ To-morrow ! to- 
morrow ! ” she said to herself. Beenie listened with much 
solemnity to this happy tone of certainty. She would have 
liked to moralize, and bid her mistress modify her too great 
confidence. As the moment approached when it should be 
justified Beenie’s mind became more and more perturbed. 
It was she who had been instrumental in bringing Mar- 
g’ret from Edinburgh, pretending, indeed, that the woman 
was her cousin, and she had till now taken it for granted, 
as Lily had done, without any doubt in her mind, that 
where Marg’ret had been found once she would be found 
again. But as the hour came nearer Beenie’s confidence 
in this became much shaken. If he wanted to hide the 
child from his mother — a course which Beenie acknowl- 
edged to herself would be the wisest one, for how could 
the baby and Sir Robert ever live under the same roof ? — 
would he have allowed the nurse to settle there, where her 
address was known and she could be found in a moment ? 
Beenie’s intellect was not quick, but she did not think this 
was probable. She was not accustomed to secrecy or to 
the tricks of concealment : they had not even occurred to 
her till now; but when she realized that she was to be her 
mistress’s guide on the next morning to the house where 


364 


Lily had persuaded herself slie was certain to find her 
child, her lieart sank to her boots, and there was no more 
strength left in her. ‘‘And what if we dinna find her 
there? and wherefore should we find her there?” Beenie 
asked herself. It stood to reason, as she saw now, that 
Lurnsden would never have permitted her to remain. Why 
had she not thought of it before ? Why had she come on 
such a fool’s errand, to plunge her mistress only into deeper 
and deeper disappointment ? Beenie did not sleep all 
night, though Lily slept, in her great fatigue, like a child. 
Beenie was terrified of the morning, and of the visit which 
she now felt sure would be in vain. Oh, why had she not 
seen it before ? He must have known that the motlier 
would not give up her child without an attempt to recover 
him (“ Though what we are to do with him, poor wee man, 
when we get him ! ” Beenie said to herself), and he would 
never have left the baby where it could be found at once, 
and all his precautions made an end of. Beenie saw now, 
enlightened by terror, that this plan must have been in 
Lumsden’s head all the time, though Sir Robert’s sudden 
arrival gave the opportunity for carrying it out. She saw 
now that after all that had been done to keep the secret he 
was not likely to allow it to be thrown to the winds by the 
presence of the child at Dalrugas if he could help it. She 
divined this under the influence of her own alarm and 
anxiety. And would he let the woman bide there in a kent 
place where Lily could lay her hands upon the child whenever 
she pleased, night or day ? Oh, no, no, no ! he would never 
do that, was the refrain that ran through Beenie’s mind 
all the night. She had thought how delightful it would 
be to hear the clocks striking and the bells ringing after 
the deep, deep silence of the moor. But this satisfaction 
was denied her, for all the bells and the clocks seemed to 
upbraid her for her foolishness. “ Sae likely ! Sae likely ! ” 
one of them seemed to say in every chime. “ Cheating 
himself ! Cheating himself ! ” said another. And was 
there not yet one, heavier than the rest — St. Giles himself 
for any thing she could tell — which seemed to echo out : 


365 


“ You fool, Beenie ! You fool, Beenie ! ” over all the 
listening town ? 

Oh, my bonnie leddy ! ” said Beenie, when Lily, all 
flushed and eager with anticipation, took her place in the 
old-fashioned hackney coach that was to take them to 
Marg’ret’s abode. This was in a narrow street, or rather 
close, leading off the Canongate — one of those places 
hidden behind the great houses which lead to tranquil 
little spots of retirement, and openings into the fresh air 
and green braes, which no stranger could believe possible. 
“ Oh, my bonnie leddy, dinna, dinna be so terrible sure ! 
I’ve been thinking a’ the way — what if she should have 
flitted ? There was nae address to her letter. She may 
have flitted to another house. She may be away at other 
work.” 

“ What ! and leave my baby ! ” cried Lily, when she 
said in her letter he was all her occupation, as well as all her 
pleasure! I almost forgave her what she’s done to me for 
saying that.” 

“ And so she did,” said Beenie doubtfully. Oh, I’m 
no saying a word against Marg’ret — she would be faithfu’ 
to her trust. But she might flit to another house for 
a’ that. In Edinburgh the folk are aye flittin’. I canna 
tell what possesses them. Me — I would bide where I was 
well off ; I would never think of making a change just 
for change’s sake. But that is what they’re aye doing 
here.” 

‘‘ Have you heard any thing, Beenie ? ” cried Lily, turn- 
ing pale. She had been so sure that the cup of joy was 
within reach, that the thirsting of her heart would be at 
once satisfied, that she felt as if a disappointment would 
be more than she could bear. 

‘‘ Oh, mem,” cried Beenie, producing a bottle of salts 
from her capacious pocket, ‘‘ dinna let down your heart ! 
I have heard naething. I was just speaking of a common 
fact that every-body kens. And if she had flitted, they 
would maybe ken where she had gone. Oh, ay, they 
would certainly ken where she has gone — a woman and 


366 


a bairn canna disappear leaving no sign. It’s not like 
a single person, that might just be off and away, and 
nobody the wiser, mem ! I am maybe just speaking non- 
sense, and we’ll see her at her door in a moment, with our 
bonnie boy in her airms.” 

Beenie, however, had succeeded better than she had 
hoped. She had conveyed to her mistress that sickening 
of the heart which, from the most ancient daj^s of human- 
ity, has been the consequence of hope deferred. The liglit 
went out of Lily’s eyes. She leaned back in her corner, 
closing them upon a world which had suddenly grown 
black and void. She did not lose consciousness, being far 
too strongly bound to life by hope and despair and pain 
to' let the thread drop even for a moment; but Beenie 
thought she had fainted, and, heartstruck with what 
seemed to her her own work, produced out of the reticule 
she carried a whole magazine of remedies — precious eau-de- 
Cologne, which was no common thing in tliose days, and 
vinegar with a sharp, aromatic scent, more used then than 
now, and even as the last resort a small bottle of whiskey, 
which she tried hard, though with a hand that trembled, 
to administer in a teaspoon. Lily had strength enough to 
push her awa^^ and, in self-defence, opened her eyes again, 
seeing grayly once more 4ihe firmament, and the high 
houses on either side, and the dull day from which all light 
seemed to have gone. It was she, however, who sprang 
out of the coach when it stopped at the entrance to the 
close. Every-body knows what the Canongate of Edin- 
burgh is — one of the most noble streets, yet without ques- 
tion the most squalid and spoiled of any street in Europe, 
with beautiful stately old houses standing sadly among the 
hideous growths of yesterday, and evil smells and evil 
noises enough to sicken every visitor and to shame every 
man who has any thing to do with such a careless and 
wicked sacrifice of the city’s pride and ornament.* But 

* There is a scheme in consideration now, I believe, to restore that 
noble street out of its degradation to something like the stateliness of 
old, through the patriotic exertions of Professor Geddes. 


367 


even in the midst of this disgraceful debasement there 
remain beyond the screen of the great old houses glimpses 
of the outlets which the old citizens provided for them- 
selves — old court-yards, even old gardens, old houses secure 
within their little enclosures where the air is still pure and 
the sky is still visible. Lily’s heart rose a little as she 
came out of the narrow entrance of the close into one of 
these unexpected openings. If he were here, he would be 
well. She could see the green beyond and the high slopes 
of Salisbury Crags. There was something in the vision of 
greenness, in the noble heights flung up against the sky, 
which restored her confidence. 

But it was perhaps well that Beenie had spoken even so 
little adroitly on the way, for, indeed, Marg’ret was not 
found at her old address. She had never gone back there, 
they were told, since the time when she was called away in 
the summer to attend a lady in the North. She had not, 
indeed, been expected back. She had given up her rooms 
on going away, and removed her little furniture, and the 
rooms had been relet at once to a member of the same pro- 
fession, who hoped to be sometimes mistaken for Marg’ret, 
a person of high reputation in her own line. The landlady 
knew nothing of the baby she had now to take care of nor 
where she was. The furniture ? Oh, yes, she could find out 
where the furniture had been taken, but Marg’ret herself, 
she felt sure, had never come back. She was maybe with 
the lady still — the lady in the North. She was so much 
thought upon that whiles they would keep her, if the baby 
were delicate, for months and months. She had a wonder- 
ful way with babies, the woman said. (At this Lily, who 
had been leaning heavily on her attendant’s arm, with her 
pale face hidden under her veil, and all her courage gone, 
began to gather a little spirit and looked up again.) Oh, 
just a wonderful way ! They just throve wi’ her like 
flowers in May. What she did different from ither folk 
there was not one could tell : if it was the way she handled 
them, or the way she fed them, or the pittin’ on o’ their 
claithes, with fykes and fancies that a puir buddy with the 


368 


man’s meat to get and the house to keep clean liad no time 
for. But the fack was just this, that there was nobody 
like Marg’ret Bland for little bairns. They were just a 
different thing a’thegither when they were in her hands. 

As this little harangue went on Lily’s feeble figure 
hanging on Beenie’s arm straightened itself by degrees. 
She put up her veil and beamed upon the homely woman, 
who showed evident signs that she had little time, as she 
said, to keep herself tidy for one thing. Lily was not dis- 
couraged by so small a matter. She said, holding out her 
hand : Then you would leave a baby in her hands and 
have no fear ? ” 

Eh, my bonnie leddy,” cried the woman, with a half 
shriek, wiping her hands upon her apron before she 
ventured to touch the lady’s glove, “ I would trust Mar- 
g’ret Bland maist to bring them back from the deid.” 

We must find her, that is all,” said Lily, as they turned 
away, Beenie trembling and miserable, with subdued sniffs 
coming from under her deep bonnet. Her mistress, in the 
petulance which neither anxiety nor trouble could quench, 
gave her ‘‘a shake” with her arm, which still leaned upon 
hers, though Lily for the moment was the more vigorous 
of the two. We must find her, that is all ! She must be 
clever indeed if she can hide herself in Edinburgh and you 
and me not find her, Beenie ! We must search every street 
till we find her! ” Lily cried. The color had come back to 
her cheeks and the light to her eyes. That blessed assur- 
ance that, wherever Marg’ret might be, the baby was safe, 
doubly safe in her skilled and experienced hands, was to 
the young mother like wine. The horror of the dis- 
appointment seemed to be disguised, almost to pass away, 
in that unpremeditated testimony. If it was for to- 
morrow rather than for to-day so long as he was so safe, so 
well, so assured against all harm, as that ! We have 
only to find her,” Lily said, dragging Beenie back to the 
hackney coach, in which they immediately drove to the 
place where Marg’ret, now to be spoken of as Mistress 
Bland, had been supposed to place her furniture. But 


369 


this was 110 more than a warehouse, where the person in 
cliarge allowed disdainfully that twa-three auld sticks o’ 
furniture in that name were in his charge, but knew noth- 
ing more of the wuinman than just that they were hers, 
and that that was her name. Lily, however, was not dis- 
couraged. She drove about all day in her hackney coach, 
catching at every clue. She went to the hospitals, where 
Mrs. Bland was known but supposed to be still with the 
lady in the North who had secured her services in the 
summer. 

If you know where she’s to be heard of,” one of the 
matrons said, ‘‘ I will be too thankful, for there is another 
place waiting for her or somebody like her.” 

“ And is she such a good nurse as that ? ” cried Lily, 
glowing with eagerness all in a moment, though her face 
had relapsed into pallor and anxiety. 

“ She is one of the best nurses we have ; and espe- 
cially happy with delicate children,” the matron answered 
with some astonishment. And she tapped Beenie on 
the shoulder and said an indignant word in her ear. 

Woman ! ” she said, are ^mu mad to let your mistress 
wander about like this, when it’s well to be seen she’s just 
out of her bed, and in my opinion not long past her 
time ? ” 

‘‘My mistress,” said Beenie, with a gasp, “is just 
a young lady — in from the country.” 

“Just you get her back as fast as you can,” said the 
, experienced woman, “ or you’ll have her worse than ever 
on your hands again.” 

But this was what Beenie could not do. She had to 
follow Lily’s impetuous lead on many a wild-goose-chase 
and hopeless expedition here and there from one place 
to another during the rest of the day; and when they 
returned to their lodgings, worn out and cast down, in the 
evening, it was still the mistress who had the most strength 
and spirit left. “ There is only one thing to do now,” she 
said, while Beenie placed her on the hard sofa beside the 
fire, and endeavored to induce her to rest. Her face was 
U 


370 


very pale and her eyes very bright, with a faint redness 
round the eyelids accentuating the absence of color. 
‘‘There is one thing to do. Mr. Lumsden ” — she paused 
a little after the name, as if it made her other words more 
difficult or exhausted her breath — “ will have come back 
now to his lodging. You know where that is as well as 
I do. You will go and tell him that he is to come to me 
here.” 

“ Mem ! ” cried Beenie in great perturbation. 

“ Did you think,” said Lily, very clear, in a liigh, scorn- 
ful tone, “that I ’would come to Edinburgh and not see my 
husband ? Is it not my duty to see my husband ? You 
will go to him at once! ” 

“It is no that,” cried Beenie ; “ I thought you would see 
him first of all. He’s your man, oh ! my dear, dear lassie 
— you’re married upon him never to be parted till death 
comes atween you. I would have had you see him first of 
a’, and weel ye ken that ; but now when you’re wearied 
out body and mind, and nae satisfaction in your heart, 
and every thing that is atween ye worse and worse by 
reason of muckle pondering and dwelling on it — oh, mem, 
my dear, no to-night, no to-night ! You have a sharp 
tongue, though you never mean it, and he is a gentleman 
that is not used to be crossed and has aye had his ain way. 
Oh, mem, he’s a masterful man, though he’s never been 
but sweet as sugar to you. Try to take a sleep and rest, 
and wait for the morn. The morn is aye a new day.” 

“ I am glad,” said Lily, with shining eyes, “ that you 
think I have a sharp tongue, Beenie ; and you may be 
sure, if ever I meant it in my life, I will mean it now. But 
I will not discuss Mr. Lumsden with you or any one. You 
will just go to him ” 

“ Mem, let me speak once, if I’m never to say a word 
again! ” cried Beenie. “That your heart should be sore to 
see the dear bairn, to take him back into your airms, oh, 
that I can weel understand. So is mine, though I’m far, 
far from being what you are to him, and no to be named in 
the same breath. But, mem, oh, my dear leddy, my bonnie 


371 


Miss Lily ! if I may just say that once again, what will 
ye do with him when you have him ? Oh, let me speak — 
just this once. You canna, canna take him to that auld 
gentleman at hame ; you canna do it. He has maybe not 
been much to you in the years that are past, but he’s awfu’ 
fond of you now. He looks to you to make him a home, 
to be the comfort of his old age. Oh ! I’m no saying he 
deserves it at your hands. But what do the best of us 
deserve? We just get what we dinna deserve from God 
the first, and sometimes from a tender he’rt here below. 
And he is an auld man and frail ; he has maybe no long to 
live. Will you tell him a’ that long story, how we’ve 
deceived him and the whole world, and about your mar- 
riage, and about the birth, and a’ in his house, that he 
meant for such different things?” 

“ Beenie,” said Lily, “ stop, or you will kill me. If 
I have deceived him so long, it was with no will of mine. 
Oh, God knows, if none of you know, with no will of mine, 
nor yet intention ! Is that not the more reason that 
I should deceive him no longer ? He may turn me away. 
What will that matter? We will be poor creatures the 
two of us, you and me, if we cannot help ourselves and 
the darling bairn.” 

“ But it will maitter to him,” said Beenie steadily, the 
poor auld gentleman in that lonely house. He’s been 
a kind of a father to you, if no so tender a father as might 
have been. I’m no saying you should have deceived him, 
but that’s done, and it canna be undone. If you tell him 
now, it will maybe kill him at the hinder end, and whether 
that will be better you must just think for yoursel’, for 
I have said all that I’m caring to say.” 

Lily had covered her face with her hands, and there was 
a moment of silence, unbroken save by a sob from Beenie, 
who naturally, having spoken forth her soul, was now cry- 
ing as if her heart would break. 

“ Beenie,” said Lily, all at once looking up, you will 
go to Mr. Lumsden, who will be now at his lodgings 
dressing, I would not wonder, to go out to dinner — that is 


372 


what is most likely — and tell him I am here. I would not 
wisli to make him lose his engagement if he has one ; you 
can say that.” • 

“ Oh, mem ! ” murmured Beenie under her breath. 

But when it suits with his convenience, I would like 
to see him, to ask him a question or two. Go now, go,” 
she said impatiently, “ or 3^ou will be too late.” 

Weeping, Beenie went forth to do her mistress’s behest. 
Weeping, she put on her big bonnet, with a veil over it, of 
a kind of Spanish lace with huge flowers, which was the 
fashion of the day, and which allowed here and there 
a patch of her tearful countenance to appear, blocking out 
the rest. She found some difiiculty in gaining admittance 
to Ronald, who was, his landlady informed her, “ dressing 
to go out to his dinner,” as Lily had foretold, and it was 
in the full glory of evening dress that he came forth upon 
her after she had fought her way to his sitting-room, and 
had waited some time for his appearance. He was very 
much startled by the sight of her, and came up taking her 
hand, demanding: ‘‘Lily — how is my Lily?” with an 
energy and anxiety which partly quenched Beenie’s un- 
reasonable exasperation at the sight of his dress. 

“ She is here, sir, and wishful to see you,” said Beenie, 
“ when it’s convenient to you.” 

“Lily here — where? What do 3^ou mean? Conven- 
ient ! Do you mean she is at the door ? ” 

“ It is not likel}^, sir,” cried Beenie with indignant 
disgust. 

“ What do you mean, woman ? Lily who, 3^011 wrote to 
me, was just recovered from a nearly fatal illness ! ” 

“And that’s true. Her blood would have been on the 
head of them that brought it on her if it had not been for 
the mercy of God.” 

“ Where is she ? ” cried Lumsden, seizing his hat. 

“ She said,” said Beenie with much intensity : “ ‘ He 
will most likely be going out to his dinner. I will not 
have him break his engagement for me!’” 

“ I think,” he cried, “ that you mean to drive me 


373 


mad ! Where is she ? Does any one know she is 
here ? ” 

‘‘ It is known she is here,” said Beenie sententiously, 
‘‘ to get change of air, as is thought, after her long, long 
illness ; but, in fack, to look for her dear little bairn, 
which is the object in her ain mind, my poor bonnie leddy. 
And, oh, sir! if ye ken where the baby is, as ye must ken, 
having taken the responsibility upon your hands, for we 
canna find him, we canna find him ! and it will just break 
her heart and she will die ! ” 

‘‘Here — and looking for the child without consulting 
me ! ” he said, with an exclamation of anger and astonish- 
ment. He flung on a coat rapidly, and, almost thrusting 
Beenie out of the room before him, hurried her away. A 
few more questions put to her as they hastened along the 
streets showed him exactly the state of the case. It was 
no running away. Lily had not come to him to throw 
herself upon his mercy, to be owned and established and 
have her child restored to her in the legitimate way. Had 
it been so it would have been very difficult to reject her, 
to silence her prayer and send her back, without losing hold 
upon her altogether. Had he lost hold upon her altogether 
without that ? He was very much alarmed, but yet he felt 
that the situation was less impossible than if she had come 
to demand her place at his side and public acknowledg- 
ment. She did not want him — she wanted her baby ; and 
what without him could she do with her baby ? how pro- 
duce it, how account for it ? Ronald began to feel more 
at his ease, to feel himself again master of the situation as 
he hurried Beenie, who was very tired and wretched, and 
scarcely able to keep up with him, to Lily’s refuge. Let 
no one suppose for a moment that he meant to disown her, 
that any dishonor was in his thoughts. In the last resort, 
if nothing else was to be done, Ronald had no intention 
but to stand faithfully by his wife. He had not, indeed, 
any power of doing otherwise ; for were there not Mr. 
Blythe and the two witnesses and the marriage lines 
against him? But, as a matter of fact, he never thought 


374 


of that, altliough he breathed more freely when he knew 
no such claim was intended, and felt once again that the 
helm was in his own hands. 

But in the meantime how to meet Lily was occupation 
enough for his thoughts. He walked along the darkling 
streets, with the winjd in his face and a whirlwind of 
thought in his mind. How was he to meet her — what was 
lie to say to lier? It was an interview on which might 
depend the whole after-course of liis life. 


CHAPTER XLI 

It was a very little, homely lodging in which Lily was, 
the little parlor of an old-fashioned poor little house, 
intended at its best to receive an Edinburgh lawyer’s clerk, 
or perhaps a poor minister or teacher, on his promotion. 
Ronald had never seen his wife in such surroundings. He 
gave a cry of surprise and dismay as he pushed open the 
door. How often had she said that she would share any 
poverty with him, and yet it hurt him to see her here, out 
of her natural sphere, like a princess banished into a sor- 
did world of privation and ugliness. At the sound of his 
voice Lily sprang up from the slippery black hair-cloth 
sofa on which she had been reposing. He thought at first 
it was to meet him as of old with open arms and heart to 
heart, but of this she showed no sign, nor even when he 
rushed forward to take her into his arms did she make any 
movement. She had seated herself on the sofa again, 
drawing back in an attitude of repulsion which could not 
be mistaken. “ Lily ! ” he cried, ‘‘ Lily ! Is this the way 
you receive me ? Have you nothing to say to me ? ” 

“Oh, yes, I have a great deal to say to you. Give Mr. 
Lumsden a chair, Beenie. It is as I thought ; you were 
going out to dinner,” said Lily, with a gleam of exaspera- 
tion at the sight of his evening dress, which was of course 


875 


wholly unreasonable. “ Why should you have broken 
your engagement for me ? ” 

“ You know well I would break any engagement for 
you,” he said. “You must know all that I have suffered 
during the past two months, unable to see you, even to 
hear of you, and not a word, not a word from yourself all 
that time.” 

“ What hindered you coming to see me ? ” she asked. 
“ What prevented you ? If I had died, as seemed likely, 
it could have done you no harm in the world, for with me 
every hope of Uncle Robert’s money, which is what has 
been my destruction, would have fallen to the ground.” 

“ Lily, you never will understand ! I did go to Kinloch- 
Rugas. I was once under your windows, but got no sat- 
isfaction. A man has to be silent and endure where a 
woman cries out. I did what I could to ” 

“ That is enough,” said Lily, wawing her hand. “ Be- 
tween you and me there need be no more talking. I sent 
for you for one thing, to ask you one question — where is 
my baby ? You took him out of my arms ; bring him back 
again to me, and then there may be ground to speak.” 

“ He is my baby as well as yours, Lily. I have the 
responsibility of the family. I did what I felt to be best 
both for him and you.” 

“What was best?” she cried. “Are you a god to 
judge what is best ? But I will not argue with you. 
Give me my baby back! His mother’s arms — that is his 
natural place ! Give me back my child, and then, perhaps, 
I may hear you speak.” 

He had thought this matter over as he came along with 
the rapidity of highly stimulated thought, and a sudden 
great necessity for decision ; he had thought of it often 
before, looking at the subject from every point of view. 
To give her back the baby was to ruin every thing for 
which he had fought. He had not deprived himself of 
the company of a wife he loved, he said to himself, for a 
small motive ; not for nothing had he encountered all the 
difficulties of the position in the past, and all her re- 


876 


proaclies, tacit and expressed. Her very look at him had 
often been very hard to bear, and yet he paused now 
before making his last stroke. Once more, like lightning, 
the question passed through his mind, what other way was 
there ? Was there any other way in which her mind 
could be satisfied and her foolish search made an end of ? 
Could he in any other way secure her return to her home, 
and the carrying out to the end of his scheme ? But on 
the other hand would she ever forgive him for what he 
must now do ? He had not more than a moment to carry 
on that controversy, to make his final decision. And she 
was looking at him all the time : Lily’s eyes, which so 
often had smiled upon him, so often followed him with 
tenderness and met him with the sudden flash of love and 
delight, were fixed upon him steadily now, shaded by 
curved brows, regarding him sternly without indulgence, 
without wavering or softening. He was no longer to Lily 
covered with the glamour of love. She saw him as he 
was, nay, worse than he was, with a look that took no 
account of his real feeling toward herself, or of what was 
in fact a perverted desire to do the best, as he saw it, for 
her as well as for himself. Would these eyes ever soften, 
whatever he might do or say ? Would she ever forgive 
him even now ? 

‘‘ Lily,” he said with an effort, overcoming the dryness 
of his throat, trying still to gain a little time. “ 1 am 
your husband, I am your natural head and guide; it is my 
part to judge what is wisest, what is the best thing for 
you. I am older than you, I am more experienced in the 
world. I know what can be done, and what cannot be 
done. Whatever you may wish and whatever you may 
say, it is for me to judge what is the best.” 

It is not often that a woman hears an uncompromising 
statement of this kind with patience, and Lily was little 
likely to have done so in her natural condition of mind, 
but at present she had no thought but one. ‘‘ I have told 
you,” she cried, ‘‘that you can speak after, and that I 
will hear. But in the meantime bring me back my little 


377 


baby. I ask nothing but that, I’ve no mind for reasoning 
now. Give me back my baby, my little bairn ; that’s all 
I am asking. My baby, my baby ! Ronald, if ever in 
your life you had a kind thought of me, a thought that was 
not all interest and money, and for the love of God, if 
ever you knew that, give me back my baby ! and then,” 
she cried with a gasp — “ then we can talk! ” 

His mind was made up now ; there was nothing else for 
it. His face assumed an air of the deepest gravity ; that 
was not difficult, for, indeed, his situation was grave 
enough. He put out his hand and laid it upon hers for 
a moment. “ Lily,” he said, ‘‘ I’ve been endeavoring to 
,put off this blow. It was perhaps foolish, but I thought 
you would feel it less were you kept in ignorance than if 
all your hopes were cut off. Fain, fain would I bring 
back your baby and lay him in your arms again! You 
think I am a harsh man with no softness for a mother and 
a child, but you are mistaken, Lily. All that I am worth 
in this world I would give to bring him back. But there 
is but one hand that could do that.” 

She raised herself up with a start, flinging off his hand, 
which again had touched hers. ‘‘ What do you mean ? 
What do you mean ? ” she cried, with wild staring eyes, 
eyes that seemed to be bursting from her head. She had 
been leaning back on the hard sofa in her weakness. Now 
she sat upright, her hands raised before her as if to push 
off some dreadful fate. 

“You know what I mean, Lily,” he said, looking at 
her with a determined steadiness of gaze. “ What is the 
life of an infant like that ? It is like anew-lighted candle 
that every breath can blow out. Oh ! blame me, blame 
me ; I will not say a word. Tell me it was the night jour- 
ney, the plunge into the cold, after the warm bosom of his 
mother. I thought it was the only thing I could do, but I 
will not say a word if you tell me I was to blame. Anyhow, 
whosever blame it was, the baby, poor little thing ” 

“You mean he is dead ! ” said Lily, with a great cry. 

He thought she had fainted : they all were in the way 


378 


of thinking she had fainted when all her life went from 
her, except pain, which is the strongest life of all. Every 
thing was black before Lily’s eyes ; her heart leaped with 
a wild movement and then seemed to die and become still in 
her breast ; her lips dropped apart, as if the last breath had 
passed there with that cry. Ronald thought she had fainted 
for the first moment, and then he thought she had died. He 
sprang up with anguish in his heart ; he had done it, 
braving all the risks, knowing her weakness, yet Beenie, 
rushing in at the sound of Lily ’s cry, with all her battery 
of remedies, forgave him whatever he might have done at 
the sight of his face. “ I have killed her ! I have killed 
her! ” he cried; ‘‘it is my fault ! ” 

“Oh, sir, you should mind how weak she is!” cried 
Beenie, bringing forth her essences, her salts, her aromatic 
vinegar. Their words came faintly to Lily’s brain. She 
struggled up again from the sofa, on which she had fallen 
back, beating the air with her hands, as if to find and clutch 
at something that would give her strength. “ My baby 
is dead!” she cried, stumbling over the words. “My 
baby, my baby is dead, my baby is dead! ” It seemed as 
if the wail had become mechanical in the completeness of 
her downfall and misery, body and soul. 

“Oh, sir!” cried Beenie again. She looked at him 
once more with another light in her eyes. She was but a 
simple woman, but to such there comes at times a kind of 
divination. But Ronald’s look was fixed upon Lily, his 
eyes were touched with moisture, the deepest pain was in 
his face. Could it be that a man could look like that and 
yet lie ? 

“ Say nothing to her! ” she cried almost with authority; 
“ let her get her breath. But tell you me, sir, when was 
it that this came about ? I heard you tell her to blame 
you if she pleased. What for were you to blame ? Tell 
me that I may explain after. Mr. Lumsden, she has a 
right to ken. When did it happen and what was the 
cause ? For all so little as a bairn is, it’s no without a 
cause when the darlings die.” 


379 


“ You take too much upon you, Beenie,” he said. 
‘‘ You have no right to demand explanations. And yet, 
why should not I give them ? ” he said, with a tone of 
resignation. “ I fear the poor little thing never got the 
better of that night journey. What could I do ? I could 
not stay there to face Sir Robert on his first arrival. I 
could not leave Lily to bear the brunt. I had but little 
time to think, but what was there else to do ? I felt even 
that to snatch him away at a stroke would be better for 
her than a lingering parting with him, and the anticipation 
of it. There was every cause. Beenie, you’re a reason- 
able woman.” 

“ I will not say, sir,” said Beenie, “ that it was without 
reason ; me and Katrin have said as much as that between 
ourselves, seeing a’ that had gone before.” 

“ Seeing all that had gone before,” Ronald repeated 
with readiness. But Providence,” he added, “ turns all 
our wisest plans sometimes to nought. I know nothing 
about children ” 

“ But Marg’ret kent weel about children ! ” 

“ Yes, she was perhaps the more to blame, if any one is to 
blame. Anyhow, the poor little thing — I can’t explain it, 
you should see her, she would tell you — caught cold or 
something. How could I send you word when she was so 
ill ? I would have kept it from her now, at least till she 
was stronger and better able to bear it.” 

It would, maybe, have been better,” Beenie said, with 
a brevity that surprised Ronald and made him slightly 
uneasy. The woman did not break forth into lamenta- 
tions, as he had expected, but that might be for Lily’s 
sake, who, lying back again upon the white pillow which 
Beenie had placed behind her head, with the effect of 
making her almost transparent countenance, with its faint 
but deepened lines, look more fragile than ever, was com- 
ing gradually to herself. Tears were slowly welling forth 
under her closed eyelids, but she was very still. Whether 
she was listening, or whether she was absorbed in her own 
sorrow and careless of what was going on, he could not 


880 


tell. Anyhow, it was a relief to him that she was silent, 
and that the woman who was her closest attendant and 
confidant was so easily satisfied. He began to question 
her anxiously as to where Lily should go for her convales- 
cence now that her object in coming there was so sadly 
ended. Portobello, Bridge of Allan, wherever it was, he 
would go at once and look for rooms. He would come 
when she was settled and spend as much time as possible 
with her. He took the whole matter at once into his own 
hands. And it was with a sensation of relief that he con- 
cluded after all this was said that he could now go away. 
‘‘ You will do well to get her to bed and give her a sleep- 
ing-draught if you have one,” he said, bending over Lily 
with a most anxious and tender countenance as she lay, still 
with her eyes closed, against the pillow. It was not how 
he had expected her to take this dreadful news which he 
had brought : he had expected a passion of grief, almost 
raving ; he had expected violent weeping, a storm of 
lamentation. He had, on the contrary, got through very 
easily ; the tears even had ceased to hang upon Lily’s 
closed eyelids. He bent down over her and kissed her 
tenderly on the forehead. She shrank from the touch, 
indeed, but yet he felt that he must expect so much as that. 

‘‘There is but one thing, sir,” said Beenie : “the 
woman Marg’ret, that does not seem to me to be such a 
grand nurse as we heard she was — you say we should see 
her and she would tell us a’. And that is just what I’m 
wanting, to see her, if you could tell me where to find her.” 

“ I tell you ! How should I know ? ” he said. “ She 
will be in the same place where we found her before, I 
suppose.” 

“ No, sir, she is not there.” 

“ Then she will have gone off to nurse somebody else. 
That’s her way of living, isn’t it ? No, I can tell you 
nothing about her. You may suppose the sight of her was 

not very pleasant to me after But she is a well- 

known person. You will find no diflSculty in finding her 
out.” 


381 


“ If that’s your real opinion, Mr. Luinsden ” 

“ Of course it is my opinion. I will take a run to the 
Bridge of Allan to-inorrow, and in the evening 1 will bring 
you word.” 

With this, and with careful steps, not to disturb Lily, 
but yet with an uneasy soul and no certainty that he had 
succeeded in his bold stroke, Lumsden went away, Beenie 
respectfully accompanying him to the door. But when it 
was closed upon him, Beenie, though no light-footed girl, 
flew up the stairs, and rushing into the room with her 
hands outstretched, was met by Lilj^ who fell upon her 
maid’s shoulder, both of theni saying together : “ It is not 
true ! it’s no true ! ” 

“The Lord forgive him!” said Beenie. “And, oh, I 
hope you’ll be able to do it, but no me ! I’m not a good 
woman, I’m just a wild Highlander, and I could have put 
a pistol to his head as he stood there ! ” 

“ I can forgive him easier,” said Lily, with the tears 
now coming freely, “ than if it had. been true. Oh, 
Beenie ! if it had been true ! ” 

“ Whisht, whisht, my darling leddy ! but no, my dear, 
just greet your fill. Eh, mem, how little a man kens ! 
They’re so grand with their wisdom, and never to think 
that a woman would send a scart of a pen whatever to let 
us ken the dear lamb was well. I’ve often heard the min- 
isters say that the deevil’s no half as clever as he seems, 
and now I believe it this day. But you’ll just go to your 
bed and I’ll give you the draught, as he said, for this has 
been an awfu’ day.” 

“Yes, I’ll go, to be strong for to-morrow,” said Lily, 
and then she turned back and caught Beenie again, throw- 
ing her arms round her. “But first,” she cried, “we’ll 
give God thanks on our bended knees that my baby is 
safe. Oh, if it had been true!” 

They both felt the baby’s life to be more certain and 
more assured because his father had sworn he was dead, 
and they knew that was not true. 

Next morning they were both up betimes and had 


382 


changed their lodging early, going not to Portohello nor 
to the Bridge of Allan, but to a village on the seaside, 
very obscure and little thought of, where, late as the season 
was, they could still spend a week or two without being 
remarked; and when she had settled her mistress there, 
Beenie went back to Edinburgh to search again and again 
through every corner that could be thought of, wherci 
Marg’ret might be heard of, but in vain. 

They went again next day, and every day, together, 
and 1 think traversed Edinburgh almost street by street 
on a quest so hopeless that both had given it up in their 
heart before either breathed a word of her despair. Tlien 
they did what seemed even to Lily (and still more to 
Beenie) a most terrible and unparalleled thing to do, and 
to which she had great difficulty in bringing her mind. 
This was to apply to the police on the subject, what we 
should call putting it into the hands of the detectives. 
Perhaps even now there are innocent persons to whom the 
idea of ^‘sending the police after” an innocent wanderer 
still seems a dreadful thing to do. And these were days 
in which the idea of the detective was little developed and 
still less understood. They are not always siill the most 
successful of functionaries, but they have at least become 
heroes of the popular imagination, and a certain class of 
fiction is full of the wonderful deeds they have succeeded 
in doing, when all things were arranged to their hand. I 
do not know that there was a single individual of the 
order at that time in Edinburgh under the present title and 
conditions, but the thing must have existed more or less 
always; and when, with many hesitations and much trouble 
of mind, Lily made her appeal to the ingenuity of the police 
service to find the missing woman, it was with a little 
flutter of hope that she saw Margaret Bland’s name and 
description taken down. Beenie would not even be pres- 
ent when this was done. She lifted up her testimony, 
declaring that nothing would induce her to send the police 
after a decent honest woman that had never done any body 
any harm. ‘‘Oh, mem, you may say what you like,” 


383 


Beenie cried. “She has had no ill intention. Send the 
pollisinan after Anither if you will. It wasna her con- 
trivancy, it wasna her contrivancy ! I would sooner die 
myself than harry a woman to her ruin and take away her 
good name!” This had been the peroration with which 
Beenie had broken away, slamming the door in the face of 
the official who came to take Miss Ramsay’s orders. Lily 
was very unhapp}’’ and deeply depressed. She had no one 
to stand by her. “It is for no harm. You will under- 
stand she is to come to no harm. Her address only — that 
is all I want,” she cried. “We’ll put it,” said the man, 
writing down his notes in his little book, “that it will be 
something to her advantage. That or a creeminal chairge 
is the only way of dealing with yon kind of folk.” 

“Yes, yes — let it be something to her advantage,” Lily 
cried. “And it will,” she said, “it will! it will be more 
to her advantage than any thing she has ever known. You 
will take care that she is not frightened, not harmed in 
any way, not in any way !” 

“How should it harm an innocent person, if this person 
is an innocent person?” the functionary said, and left 
Lily trembling for what she had done, and unable to bear 
the eye of Beenie, who would scarcely for a whole day 
after forgive her mistress. They themselves lived in 
terror of being found, perhaps, in their turn, hunted down 
by the pollis, Beenie cried — “for if you can do it for her, 
mem, what for no him that has nae scruples for you?” 
Lily in her heart trembled too at this thought. It seemed 
to her that if such means were set in action against her- 
self she would die of misery and shame. 

Ten days later she returned to Dalrugas, a little stronger, 
for her youth and vigor, and the distraction of her thoughts, 
even though so painfully, from all preoccupation with her- 
self, had given her elastic vitality its chance of recovery: 
but a changed and saddened woman, never again to be the 
Lily of the past. Her husband had not sought her, at 
least had not found her, nor had she wished him to do so ; 
but yet that he should not have penetrated so very easy a 


384 


mystery seemed to prove to her that he had not wished 
to do so, and, despite of all that had come and gone, that 
was a very different matter. Lily’s heart was as heavy as 
a woman’s heart could be as she went home. The whole 
secret of her existence, the mysteiy in which she had been 
wrapped, which she had felt to be so guilty a secret, and a 
mystery so oppressive, seemed now to be about to melt 
away, leaving her for her life long a false and empty husk 
of being, an appearance and no reality. All this tre- 
mendous wave of existence seemed to have passed over her 
head and to be gone, leaving her, as she was, Lily Ram- 
say, her uncle’s companion, the daughter of the desolate 
house, and no more, neither wife nor mother, nothing but 
a false pretence, a pitiful ghost, the fictitious image of 
something that she was not, and never again could be. 


CHAPTER XLII 

It was not without much thought that Lumsden decided 
to leave his wife unmolested when she fled from him. It 
did not cost him much trouble to discover where she had 
gone, and he watched her proceedings and those of Beenie 
carefully, and had little difficulty in discovering what 
their object was. But he had foreseen all that and taken 
his precautions, and he had no doubt as to the result. 
With Lily’s absolute inexperience, and the few facilities 
which existed at that period, a very simple amount of care 
would have been enough to baffle her. But he had taken 
a great deal of care. Margaret Bland and her charge 
were out of the reach of any researches made in Scotland, 
and his mind was quite easy as to the chances of further 
investigation, for Scotland was very much more separated 
from the rest of the world in those days than it is now. 
I do not say that it did not cost him a pang to know that 
Lily herself was within reach and to refrain from seeing 
her, from saying a word further to excuse or explain, and 


385 


from making at least an endeavor to recover her confi- 
dence. But he had gone too far now for excuses and 
expedients, and he felt that it was wiser to refrain from 
every thing of the kind until the moment came when, in 
the course of nature, he would be liberated from all restric- 
tions and be able to go to her and claim her freely, with- 
out fear of interference. If he could do so, bringing a 
great joy and surj^rise in his hand, he felt that he was 
more likely to be received and forgiven than if he were 
able only to establish a reconciliation upon the old basis 
of concealment and clandestine meetings, which now, 
indeed, would be impossible. He thought that absence 
would draw her heart toward him, and that in the silence 
she would make his excuses to herself better than he could 
do; and what would not a man merit who would bring 
back to a mother, who had mourned for him as dead, her 
living child? He said over to himself, being a man of 
literary taste, some verses of Southey’s, who was more 
thought of then as a poet than now : 

“ When the fond mother meets on high 
The babe she lost in infancy/' 

Would not all be forgiven for the sake of that? But 
then came in the question, had they believed him? Had 
they not believed him ? Had there been some channel 
of which he knew nothing by which they had pro- 
cured information in respect to the child? This was 
the one doubtful matter which would be enough to 
crush all his most careful schemes. But he could not 
see how it was possible they could have obtained any 
information. That Margaret Bland should have written 
did not occur to him. Persons of her class did not write 
letters daily then as they do now; and he thought he had 
secured her devotion wholly to himself, and made it quite 
clear to her that for his wife’s sake this was the only thing 
that could be done. Margaret had understood him com- 
pletely. She was a person of superior intelligence. She 
was an admirable nurse and devoted to the baby. But she 
25 


386 


was quite unaware at first that the arrangement made with 
her was unknown to Lily, nor had she known that in writ- 
ing to Robina she had transgressed her contract with the 
child’s father. It was her duty to be silent now, she was 
informed, in order to avoid all danger of a correspondence 
that might be discovered; but nothing even now had been 
said to Margaret which could have made her feel herself 
in the wrong, or led her to confess what she had done. 
Thus the one thing which would have made him see how 
fatally he had risked all his possibilities was concealed 
from Lumsden. He could still honestly, or almost 
honestly, persuade himself that, though what he had done 
might be cruel for the moment, it was, in reality, the best 
thing for Lily. Nothing else would have satisfied her, 
nothing less. She would never have had a moment’s 
peace had she understood that her child might be found. 
She would have thought nothing of any sacrifice involved. 
Her inheritance would have been of no value to her in 
comparison with the possession of her baby. She was 
capable of making every thing known to her uncle at 
any moment if by this means she could have secured the 
child. He had not ceased to love her, nor to entertain for 
her the admiration, mingled with indulgence, which makes 
a young woman’s faults almost more attractive than her 
virtues to her lover. It would be like Lily to do all that ; 
it was like Lily to give him all that trouble about the 
house which he never intended to get for her, but which 
it cost him so many fictions, so much exercise of ingenuit}^ 
to satisfy her about. There were very pardonable points 
in that foolishness. The desire to be with him, to identify 
her life altogether with his, was sweet: he loved her the 
better for it, though, as the wiser of the two, he knew that 
it was impracticable, and that it must be firmly, but 
gently, denied to her. And to desire to have her baby was 
very natural and very sweet, too. What prettier thing 
could there be than a young mother with her child? But 
there were more serious things in the world than those 
indulgences of natural affection, which are in themselves 


387 


so blameless and so sweet, and this, in her own best inter- 
ests, he, her husband, her natural head and guide, was 
forced to deny her, too. 

I do not think that Lily was aware of the tenor of these 
reasonings. She made very little allowance for her hus- 
band ; at no time had she been disposed to allow that in 
these matters, which were of such great importance in her 
life, he knew best. He had deceived her first of all, and 
then he had made her a reluctant accomplice in deceiving 
others. Nature, truth, honor, honesty, had all been from 
the beginning on her side, and she had thought Ronald as 
little wise as he was right in setting them all at defiance 
for the preservation of a secret which ought never to have 
been made a secret at all. She had endured it all when 
there was only herself in question, but from the moment 
in which there was hope of the baby Lily had felt with 
a leap of the heart that here was the solution of the prob- 
lem, and that every thing must now be made open to the 
light of day. It may be supposed that when, after all this 
dreadful episode, she returned alone, like, yet so unlike, 
the Lily Ramsay who was sent to Dalrugas two years 
before into banishment with Robina, her maid, the whole 
matter was turned over and over in her mind with all those 
dreadful visions of past chances, steps which, if taken, 
might have changed every thing, which are the stings of 
such a review. To Lily, as she pondered, there seemed 
so many things she might have done. She might have 
resisted the marriage first of all. She might have refused 
to be married in secrecy, in a corner — the very minister, 
she had always felt sure, though he had been kind, disap- 
proving of her all the time; but then (she excused herself) 
she had not foreseen that the marriage was to be kept a 
secret: it was only, she had understood, an expedient to 
secure quietness and speed without preliminaries that 
would have called the attention of the whole parish. And 
then, when she followed her own story to that time after 
Whit-Sunday, when she had expected her husband to 
secure the house, which could not, he swore, be obtained 


388 ' 


till the term, Lily now saw that she should have taken the 
matter into her own hand, that she should have permitted 
no more playing with the question, that, whether he liked 
it or not, she should have insisted on having some home 
and shelter of her own. Especially before the birth of her 
baby should she have insisted upon this. She clasped her 
hands with impatience and a sense of bitter failure as she 
thought it all over. She ought not to have allowed herself 
to be silenced or hindered. Her child should have been 
born in her own house, where he could have been wel- 
comed and rejoiced over, not hidden away. She cried out 
in her solitude, with that clasp of her hands, that it was all 
her fault, her own fault, that she was responsible for the 
child above all, and that it was she who should have done 
this had not only her husband, but all the powers of the earth 
gone against it. Then Lily reflected, with the impulse of 
self-defence, that she had no money, and did not knowhow 
to get any, and that it would have been hard, very hard 
for her, without her present enlightenment, to have gone 
against Ronald, to have flown in his face and thwarted 
him so completely in a matter upon which he had so firmly 
made up his mind. Oh, what a difference there was 
between the Lily of that time — hesitating, miserable to 
yield and yet unable to resist, not knowing how to take a 
great step on her own authority, to oppose her husband 
and all the lesser chain of circumstances, the unconscious 
influence even of the women who held her with a softer 
bond of watchfulness and affection — and this Lily now, 
braced to any effort, having withdrawn and separated her- 
self from him and from every other restraint of influence, 
as she thought, standing alone against all the world, deeply 
disenchanted, and considering every pretence of love and 
happiness as false and deceitful. Had it been now how 
little would she have hesitated! But was not this the 
bitterness of life : that it was then only she could have 
acted effectually, and not now? 

She settled down to the winter at Dalrugas with these 
thoughts. She was Miss Ramsay, the daughter and the 


389 


mistress of the house. She did not know and did not care 
what was thought of her in the countryside. If stories 
were told of the gentleman who had come so often from 
Edinburgh, but now came no longer, Lily heard none of 
them. Some faltering questions from Helen Blythe, who, 
instinctively, though she did not know why, never re- 
ferred to Ronald in presence of Sir Robert, were all the 
indications she ever had that his disappearance was 
commented on, and Lily did not care who spoke of Ronald, 
or how or where their secret might be betrayed ; and this 
indifference delivered her from many doubts and question- 
ings. She had no objection that any body should tell in 
detail the whole thing to Sir Robert. She held her head 
very proudly above all terrors of being found out. She 
was afraid of nothing now. Every thing, she thought, 
had happened that could happen. She was separated from 
her husband, not by any formality, not by any such motive 
as had kept the secret hitherto, but by a great gulf fixed, 
which Lily felt it was impossible should ever be bridged 
over. He had wronged her as surely never woman had 
been wronged before, lied to her, made her herself a lie, 
deprived her — last and greatest wrong of all — of her 
child. Oh, how much time, leisure, quiet, she had to think 
over and over all these thoughts, to persuade herself that 
happiness and truth were mere words, and that nothing 
but falsehood flourished in this world ! Gradually she 
sank into silence on the subject even to Beenie. Her life- 
history, over, as it seemed, at twenty-five, dropped out of 
knowledge as if it had never been. She received no 
letters. Ronald, indeed, continued to write at intervals 
for some time, addressing his letters boldly to Miss Ramsay, 
but she never replied to them, and by degrees they ceased. 
She heard nothing at all from the outside world. She 
heard nothing of her child. They had concluded between 
them, Robina and she, that if “ any thing happened ” to 
the child, Margaret would be restrained by no man, but 
would let his mother know in any case. This was all the 
sustenance upon which Lily lived. Her enquiries far and 


390 


near had come to nothing. The harmless detectives of 
the old-fashioned Edinburgh police had not succeeded in 
tracking the fugitive. They had no news of Margaret to 
send. They had never found out any thing about her, 
except what all the world knew. By one thread, and one 
only, Lily clung to life, and that was her vague faith in 
Margaret, notwithstanding all things, that the child’s life 
was safe as long as she made no sign. 

Sir Robert found himself very comfortable in Dalrugas 
during that winter. He had no idea he could have been 
so comfortable in the old lonely j)lace on the edge of the 
moor. It was wonderful how possible it was to live with- 
out amusement — nay, to feel thankful that he was no longer 
burdened with amusement and with the thought of what 
he was to do with himself and how he was to find a little 
distraction season after season. When a man is over 
seventy, the care of these things is perhaps more trouble 
than the advantage is worth when secured; but so long 
as he is in the old habitual round it is difficult to learn 
this. He had thought that he detested monotony, but 
now it appeared that he rather liked monotony — the com- 
fort of getting up with the certainty that he had no 
trouble before him, no change to think of, no decision to 
make — to read his newspaper, to read his book, to take 
his walk or his drive. Sir Robert’s horses and carriages 
very much enlarged his sphere and modified its loneliness. 
A longish drive now brought him to a neighbor’s house, 
and introduced Lily to the ladies of the county, who made 
explanations to her and regrets not to have made her 
acquaintance before. And callers became, if not numer- 
ous, yet occasional, thus adding something to the little 
round of Sir Robert’s distractions. An old gentleman or 
two in the distant neighborhood who had known him as 
a boy would come occasionally with the ladies, or a 
younger one, whose father had known him. And there 
were occasional dinner-parties, though these occurred but 
seldom. Sir Robert liked them all, but at bottom was 
more than contented when the clouds hung low and the 


891 


rain or snow fell and put it out of the question that he 
should be disturbed at all. He liked Lily’s talk best of 
all, or her silence, when they sat together by the fireside, 
where comfort and quiet reigned. He had not been such 
a good man in his life that he deserved any such halcyon 
time at its end, or to feel so virtuous, so satisfied, so 
peaceful as he did. But the sun shines and the rain falls 
alike on the just and the unjust, and he had, by good 
fortune, the art to take advantage of the good things which 
Providence sent him. Lily played a game of piquette 
with him, “ not so very badly,” he said with happy 
condescension, and was in time advanced to chess ; but 
there showed signs of beating her instructor, which made 
Sir Robert think chess was a little too much for his head, 
'in moments of weakness they even came down to simple 
draughts, and thus got through the long evenings which 
the old gentleman had so much feared, but which now 
were the happiest part of the day. 

“ I am told you have been here for a long time. Miss 
Ramsay,” Lady Dalzell said, who was the great lady of 
the neighborhood : “ how was it we never knew ? We 
are here, of course, only for a short time in the year, but 
long enough to have driven over to Dalrugas had we 
known.” 

‘H have been here,” said Lily, “for two years — but 
how it is my neighbors have not known I cannot tell. 
I could scarcely send round a fiery cross to say that a 
small person of no great account had arrived at her uncle’s 
house.” 

“ I should have thought Sir Robert would have written 
or made some provision. Do you really mean that you 
have been without a chaperon, without protection ? ” 

“ Even as you see me,” said Lily, with a laugh. 

“And nothing ever happened,” said the great lady, 
“ to make you feel uncomfortable ? ” 

Did she look at Lily with some meaning in her eyes ? 
Did she mean nothing ? Who could tell ? There might 
have been a whole world of soiis-enteiidiis in what Lady 


Dalzell said, or there might be nothing at all. Lily met 
her gaze with perhaps a little more directness than was 
necessary, but she did not change color. 

“ There was no raid made upon the house,” said Lily. 
“ I never was in any danger that I know of. There was 
Dougal, who would have fought for me to the death — 
perhaps, or, at all events, till some one came to help him. 
And I had two women who took only too much care of 
me.” 

Ah, it was not i3erils of that kind I was thinking of,” 
said Lady Dalzell, shaking her head. 

I am sorry,” said Lily — “ or perhaps I should rather 
be glad — that I don’t know what perils your ladyship was 
thinking of.” 

Then the young lady of the party. Lady Dalzell’s 
daughter, interposed, and began to talk of the aj^proach- 
ing Christmas and the entertainments to be given in the 
neighborhood. ‘‘If we had only known, we should have 
had you to the ball,” she said. “We had not one last 
New Year, but the year before, and you Avere here then.” 

“ Yes, I was here then.” 

“ It was the year of that dreadful snoAV-storm. How 
lonely it must have been for you, shut up for that long 
fortnight. Mamma, imagine ! Miss Ramsay Avas here all 
alone the year of the snow-storm, shut up in Dalrugas — 
and we had our ball and all sorts of things.” 

“ I hope Miss Ramsay had some friends or something to 
amuse her,” said Lady Dalzell. 

“ I had Helen Blythe from the Manse up to tea,” cried 
Lily, Avith a little burst of laughter, which did not seem out 
of place in the violent contrast which was thus implied, 
though she felt it herself almost like a confession. The 
two ladies looked at her strangely, she thought, and 
hastened to change the subject. Did they look at her 
strangely ? Did they think of her at all ? Or was it the 
thought of their own shortcomings in respect to this lonelj’’ 
girl, who was Sir Robert’s niece and heiress, which made 
a shade upon their brows ? They invited her to the ball, 


893 


which was to happen this year, with much demonstration 
of friendliness. Not to tire Sir Rohert, she and her uncle 
were asked to go a day or two before this important fes- 
tivity and join the home party, and Miss Dalzell conveyed 
to Miss Ramsay the delightful intelligence that there 
would be “ plenty of partners” — all the county, and the 
officers from Perth, and a large party from Edinburgh. 
The girl spoke of all these preparations with sparkling 
eyes. 

Well, Lily,” said Sir Robert, when the visitors were 
gone, “ this will be something for you : you will have one 
ball at least.” He did not much relish the prospect for 
himself, but he was grateful, and felt that he must face it 
for her. 

‘‘I don’t feel so much enchanted as I ought,” said 
Lily. ‘‘ Would it disappoint you much, uncle, if I wrote 
to say we could not go ? ” 

“ Disappoint me^ my dear ! But you must go, for you 
would like it, Lily. Every girl of your age likes a 
ball.” 

“ My age. Uncle Robert ! Do you know I am five-and- 
twenty ? I would rather sit alone all night and sew, 
though I am not very fond of sewing. Unless you want 
to dance and flirt and behave yourself as gentlemen of 
your age ought not to do, I think we’ll stay at home and 
play piquette. I am going to no ball,” cried Lily, her 
patience breaking down for the moment, “ not now, nor 
ever. I — to a ball ! after all these years ! ” 

“ Lily,” said Sir Robert, with a disturbed look, ‘‘ I have 
expressed my regret that you should have had such a lonely 
life, but it hurts me, my dear, to hear you express yourself 
with such bitterness about those years ; there were but two 
of them, after all.” 

“ That is true,” she said, recovering herself quickly, 
“ but when one has a great deal of time to think, one 
changes one’s mind about a great many things, especially 
balls.” 

“ That is true, too,” he said, ‘‘ so long as you are not 


394 


bitter about it, as I sometimes fear you are incliued to be, 
my dear.” 

Not bitter at all,” she cried, with a smile that quivered 
a little on her lip. She got up and stood at the window, 
with her back to him, looking out upon the moor. The 
clouds were hanging low, almost touching the hills, the 
sky so heavy that it seemed to be closing down, in one 
deej:) tone of gray, upon the dumb, unresisting earth. “ I 
hope,” said Lily, “ that they will get home before the 
snow comes down.” She stood there for some time look- 
ing out upon that scene, which had seen so much. ‘‘ It 
was the year of that dreadful snow-storm,” the girl had 
said. And the ball to which they had asked her was on 
the anniversary of her wedding day. 


CHAPTER XLIII 

It did not snow that year : the weather was mild and 
wet. There was not the exhilaration, the mystery, the 
clear-breathing chill, of the snow, the great gorgeous sun- 
sets over the puiq)le hills. But the little world was closed 
in with opaque walls of cloud ; the sky low, as if you 
could almost touch it ; the hills absent from the landscape, 
replaced by banks of watery mist, indefinite, meaning 
nothing ; and all life shut up within the enclosure, where 
there was shelter to be had, and warmth, if nothing else. 
It was thus that the anniversary of Lily’s honeymoon 
passed by. Her mind was like the sky, covered by heavy 
mists, falling low, as if there were no longer earth and 
heaven, but only a land of darkness and of despair 
between. Behind these mists all her existence had dis- 
appeared. Her child, perhaps, was there, her husband was 
there, the woman she might have been was there, so was 
the old Lily, the girl full of laughter and flying thoughts, 
full of quick resolutions and plans and infinite hope. The 
woman who stood by the window was a woman whom Lily 


395 


scarcely knew, who did what she had to do mechanically, 
whether it was ordering Sir Robert’s dinner, or playing 
piquette with him, or gazing, gazing out of that window 
before he came down stairs. She gazed, but she looked for 
no one upon the distant road ; her gaze meant nothing, 
any more than her life did. She had no hope of any thing, 
scarcely, she thought to herself, any desire left. A ball ! 
to go to a ball ! which her uncle thought every one of her 
age must wish to do. He had been going out to dinner 
that night ; most likely he was going to balls also, about 
the New Year time, when there were so many in Edin- 
burgh. He could not well get out of it, he would probably'* 
say to himself. At the New Year time ! the New Year ! 

That season passed over, and so did many more. Miss 
Ramsay of Dalrugas became almost well known in the 
county. She went nowhere, being very much devoted, 
every-body said, to her old uncle, and perhaps a little bitter 
at being tied to him, never able to do any thing to please 
herself ; for it was only natural to suppose it would please 
her better to see her friends, to see the world, to have her 
share of the amusements that were going, than to sit over 
the fire with that old man. “ I must say that she is good- 
ness itself to him,” Lady Dalzell said; ‘‘now at least, 
whatever she may have been.” These words fired the 
imagination of her company, who were eager to know 
what Miss Ramsay might have been in the past, but Lady 
Dalzell was very discreet, all the more that she knew noth- 
ing and was unprovided with any story to tell. “What- 
ever she may have done, she is not the least what she used 
to be when she was a girl in Edinburgh,” she said. And 
every-body was disposed to believe that Lady Dalzell 
referred to the recollections of her own youth, when she 
was herself a girl in Edinburgh, and Miss Ramsay of Dal- 
rugas perhaps a little younger and something of a contem- 
porary. There was nobody who did not add on ten years 
at least to Lily’s age. 

The little population at Dalrugas itself almost felt the 
same. To them, too, it seemed that ten years and more 


890 


had suddenly been added to their young mistress’s age. 
They themselves had departed to an incredible distance 
from her or she from them. To think how they had sur- 
rounded her with their almost protecting and familiar love 
so short a time before, watching every movement, feeling 
every variation of feeling in her, knowing all her secrets, 
giving her their most zealous guardianship, and that now 
they should be pushed so far away — the servants of the 
house, to receive their orders, but all silence between them, 
every thing that had been ignored, not a word said. It 
was Katrin who felt it most, having been aware all the 
time that she herself had much more to do in the matter, 
and was a more responsible person, than Beenie, who often 
would have been very little fitted to meet any such emer- 
gencies as had occurred, but who was now the best off, 
receiving from time to time a scrap of confidence, perhaps, 
at least the chance of close attendance, while Katrin had 
to be thinking of her dinner, and of all that was wanted in 
the enlarged and much more troublesome household. Lily 
never looked at Katrin, even, as if there had been any 
thing more intimate between them than the ordinary rela- 
tions of mistress and servant. Had she forgotten how 
Katrin had stood by her, all she had seen, all she had 
known ? Sometimes Katrin asked herself, with indigna- 
tion and a sense of injured affection, what Lily, with more 
reason, asked herself, too : had these scenes ever existed 
but in imagination ? had it been all a dream ? Sometimes 
as she came down stairs with her orders for the day, and 
with a full heart, swelling with disappointment after some 
little implied appeal to the past, of which Lily had taken 
no notice, Katrin had hard work to keep from crying, 
which would, she felt, be an eternal disgrace to’her ‘‘ afore 
thae strange women ” — the maids, who now took the work 
of the house from her shoulders, and enforced the bondage 
of the conventional upon her life. Katrin felt this as 
deeply as if she had been the most high-minded of vision- 
aries. Nowadays she had always to ‘‘behave herself,” 
always to be upon her and q's. She could not even 


897 


fly out upon Dougal, wbicli sometimes might have been a 
consolation, lest these strange women should exchange 
looks, and say to each other how little dignified for Sir 
Robert’s housekeeper this person was. Dougal, indeed, 
in the emergency, was the only one who gave her a rough 
support. He would say, with a jerk of his thumb over his 
shoulder in the direction of the stairs : “ She’s no just 
hersel’ the noo. Ye should ken that better than me ; but 
ye make nae allowance. I would like to get her out some 
day for a ride upon the powny, and maybe she would open 
her heart.” 

‘‘ To you ! ” Katrin said, with a sort of shriek, pushing 
him from her, the strange women for once being out of the 
way. 

“ She might do waur,” said Dougal, pushing his bon- 
net to his other ear. “ But, my faith ! if I ever lay 
my hand on that birky frae Edinburgh, him or me shall 
ken the reason! ” he cried, bending his shaggy brows, and 
swinging his clenched fist through the air. 

‘‘ You’re a bonnie person to interfere in my mistress’s 
affairs,” Katrin cried, “ your pownies and you ! If she’s 
mail’ distant and mair grand, it’s just what’s becoming, and 
the house full of gentlemen and ladies, no to speak o’ thae 
strange women, that are at a person’s tails, spying ever}^ 
movement, day and night. For gudeness’ sake, gang away 
and let me be quit of ye, man ! If you come in on the top 
o’ a’ to take up ony moment’s peace I have, I will just 
gang clean out of the sma’ sense that’s left me, and pison 
ye all in your broth ! ” cried Katrin, with flashing eyes. 

Dougal withdrew to the place in which he was most at 
home in the altered house, Rory’s stable, where he and 
his favorite rubbed their shaggy heads together in mutual 
consolation. Rory, too, had fallen from his high estate. 
Never now did he carry the young lady of the house 
(which, truth to tell, was not an honor he had ever appre- 
ciated much), never convey a guest to the coach or the 
market. Rory went to the hill for peat; he was ridden 
into the town, helter-skelter, by a reckless young groom, 


398 


for the letters ; instead of the gentleman of the stable, 
with the black pony under him to do all the rough work, 
it was he who had become, as it were, the black pony, the 
pony-of -all-work of the establishment. Yet what things 
he had known ! What scenes he had seen ! There was a 
consciousness of it all, and a choking, no doubt, of honest 
merit undervalued in his throat, too, as he rubbed his 
nose against Dougal’s shoulder. He had been even 
“ further ben ” than Dougal in the secrets of the life that 
was past. 

And Lily did not console Katrin, said nothing to 
Robina, did not even attempt to save the pony from his 
hard fate. She was as hard as Fate herself, wrapped up as 
in robes of ice or stone, smiling as if from a pinnacle of 
chill unconsciousness upon all those spectators of her past 
existence, the conspirators who had helped out every con- 
trivance, the accomplices. And yet it was not the rage 
which sometimes silently devoured her which separated 
her from her humble friends. She was angry with them, 
as with all the world, and herself most of all. But some- 
times her heart yearned, too, for a kind word, for a look 
from eyes which knew all that had been and was no more. 
But I think she dared not let it be seen, lest the flood-doors, 
once opened, should give forth the whole tide and could 
never close again. 

When all this came to an end, I do not think Lily was 
aware how long it had been : if it had been two years or 
■three years, I believe she never quite knew ; the dates, 
indeed, established the course of time, but when did she 
think of dates, as the monotonous seasons followed each 
other, day by night, and summer by winter, and meal by 
meal ? Routine was very strong in Sir Robert’s house, 
where every hour was measured, and every repast as 
punctual as clockwork, and there was nothing which hap- 
pened to-day which did not happen to-morrow, and would 
so continue, unwavering, unending, till time was over. 
Such a routine makes one forget that time will ever be 
over : it looks as if it might go on forever, as if no breach 


399 


were possible, still less any conclusion ; and yet, in the 
course of time, the conclusion must always come at last. 

One of these winters was a bad one for the old folk ; 
something ungenial was in the air. It was not actually 
that the temperature was much lower than usual, but the 
cold lasted long, without breaks or any intervals of rest : 
always cold, always gray, with no gleams in the sky. The 
babies felt it first, and then the old people ; every-body had 
bronchitis, for influenza was not in those days. There 
was coughing in every cottage, and by degrees the old 
fathers and mothers began to disappear. There were not 
enough of them to startle people in the newspapers as with 
any record of an epidemic, but only the old people who 
were ripe for falling, and wanted only a puff of wind to 
blow them away like the last leaves on a tree, felt that puff, 
and dropped noiselessly, their time being come. It began 
to appear of more decided importance when Mr. Blythe 
was known to be very ill, not in his usual quiet chronic 
manner, but with bronchitis, too, like all the rest. There 
had not been very much intercourse between Dalrugas and 
the Manse since Sir Robert’s arrival. He had been eager 
to see the old minister, who was almost the only relic of 
the friends of his youth, and they had found a great deal 
to say to each other on the first and even on the second 
visit. But Sir Robert liked his visitors to come to him, 
and Mr. Blythe was incapable of moving from his chair, 
so that their intercourse gradually lessened even in the 
first year, and in the second came almost to nothing at all. 
There was an embarrassment, too, between the two old 
gentlemen. Mr. Blythe felt it, and would stop short even in 
the midst of one of his best stories, struck by some sudden 
suggestion, and grow portentously grave, just where the 
laugh came in. Sometimes he would look round at Lily, 
half angry, half enquiring. He could not be at ease with 
his old friend when so great a secret lay between them, and 
though Sir Robert knew nothing about any secret, nor even 
suspected the existence of such a thing, he yet felt also 
that there was something on Blythe’s mind. “ What is 


400 


it he wants to speak to me about ? ” he would say to Lily. 

I am certain there is something. Is it about his girl ? 
He should be able to leave his girl pretty well off, or at 
least to provide for her according to her station. Does he 
want me to take the charge of his girl ? ” “ Helen will 

want nobody to take care of her,” said Lily. Then what 
is it he has on his mind ? ” Sir Robert asked, but got no 
reply. Thus it was that their intercourse had been 
checked. And there was a cloud between Lily and Helen, 
who was deeply troubled in her mind by the complete dis- 
appearance of Lumsden from the scene. There were many 
things about him, and her friend’s connection with him, 
that had disturbed Helen in the past. She had not known 
how to account for many circumstances in the story: his 
constant reappearance, the mystery of an intercourse 
which never came to any thing further, yet never 
slackened, had troubled her sorely. She had not asked, 
nor wished to hear, any explanation which might be, in 
however small a degree, derogatory to Lily. She would 
rather bear the pain of doubt than the worse pain of know- 
ing that her doubts were justified. And there were a host 
of minor circumstances which had added to her confusion 
and trouble just before Sir Robert’s arrival, when Lily 
had, as she thought, withdrawn from her society, and even 
made pretexts not to see her, to Helen’s astonishment and 
dismay. And then there came Lily’s illness, and Ronald’s 
anxious visit, and then — nothing more: a curtain falling, 
as it were, on the whole confused drama ; an end, which 
was no end. Ronald’s name had never been mentioned 
since ; he had never been seen in the country ; he had gone 
out of Lily’s life, so far as appeared, totally without rea- 
son given or word said. And Helen had not continued 
to question Lily, whom she, like every-body else, found to 
be so much changed by her illness. There was something 
in the face which had been so sweet and almost child-like 
a little time before which now stopped expansion. Helen 
looked into it wistfully, and was silent. And thus the veil 
which had fallen between the two old men came down still 


401 


more darkly between the other two, and the intercourse 
had grown less and less, until^ in the cold wintry weather 
of this miserable season, it had almost died away. 

But it was a great shock to hear, one gray, dull morning 
when every thing seemed more miserable than ever, the 
sky more heavy, the frost more bitter, that the minister 
had died in the night. This news came to them with the 
letters and the early rolls, for which every morning now 
a groom rode into Kinloch-Rugas upon the humiliated 
Rory. The minister dead ! Sir Robert was more im- 
pressed by it than could have been imagined possible. 
‘‘ Old Blythe ! ” he said to himself, with a shock which 
paled his own ruddy countenance. Why should he have 
died ? The routine of his life was as fixed and certain as 
that of Sir Robert himself. There seemed no necessity 
that it should ever be broken. He was part of the land- 
scape, like one of the hills, like the gray steeple of his 
church, a landmark, a thing not to be removed. Yet he 
was removed, and Mr. Douglas, the assistant and suc- 
cessor, was now minister of Kinloch-Rugas. In a little 
while the place which had known him so long would know 
him no more. Sir Robert ate very little breakfast that 
morning ; he had himself a bad cold which he could not 
shake off ; he got up and walked about the room, almost 
with excitement. “ Old Bly the ! ” he repeated, and began 
to recall audibly to himself, or at least only half to Lily, 
the time when old Blythe was young, as young as other 
folk, and a very cheery fellow and a good companion and 
no nonsense about him. And now he was dead ! It was 
probably the fault of that dashed drunken doctor, who 
fortunately was not Sir Robert’s doctor, who had let him 
die. Lily on her part was scarcel}^ less moved. Dead ! 
The man who had held so prominent a place in that dream, 
who had never forgotten it, in whose eyes she had read her 
own history, at least so far as he knew it, the last time 
she met his look, with so living a question in them, too, 
almost demanding, was that secret never to be told ? readj^ 
to insist, to say : ‘‘ Then I must tell it if you will not! ” 
26 


402 


She had read all that in his look the last time she had seen 
him, and in her soul had trembled. And now he was dead 
and could never say a word. She had a vague sense, too, 
that she had one less now among the few people who would 
stand by her. But she wanted no one to stand by her, she 
was in no trouble. The mystery of her existence would 
never now be revealed. 

“ I think I ought to go and see Helen, uncle,” she said. 

“Certainly, certainly!” he cried, more eager than she 
was. “ Order the brougham at once, and be sure you 
take plenty of wraps. Is there any thing we could send ? 
Think, my dear : is there any thing I could do ? I would 
like — to show every respect.” 

He made a movement as if he would go to the escritoire 
in which he kept his money ; for checks were not, or at 
least were not for individual purposes, in those days. 

“ Uncle,” she said, “ they are not poor people ; you 
cannot send money — they are like ourselves.” 

“ Let me tell you,” he said, with a little irritation, 
“ that there are many families even like ourselves, as you 
say, which the Blythes are not, who would be very thank- 
ful for a timely present at such a moment. But, how- 
ever Is there nothing you can take — no cordial, or a 

little of the port, or — or any thing ? ” 

“ Helen wants nothing, uncle — but perhaps a kind 
word.” 

“ Helen ! Ah, that’s true : the auld man’s gone that 
would have known the good of it. Well, tell her at least 

that if I can be of any use to her I always thought,” 

he cried, with a little evident but quickly suppressed 
emotion, “ that he had something he wanted to say to 
me, something that was on his mind.” 

How little he thought what it was that the old minister 
had on his mind ! and how well Lily knew ! 

Helen was very calm, almost calmer than Lily was, when 
they met in the old parlor where the great chair was 
already set against the wall. “You are not to cry, Lily. 
He was very clear in his mind, though sore wearied in his 


403 


body. He was glad at the last to get away. He said : 
‘ I’ve had my time here, and no a bad time either, the Lord 
be praised for all his mercies, and I’ll maybe find a wee place 
to creep into that She will have keepit for me : not a 
minister,’ he said, oh, Lily ! ‘but maybe a doorkeeper in 
the house of the Lord.’ Is that not all we could wish for, 
that his mind should have been like that ? ” said Helen, 
with eyes too clear for tears. She was arranging every 
thing in her quiet way, requiring no help, quite worn out 
with watching, but incapable of rest until all that was 
needful had been done. The darkened room where so 
much had happened, isolated now from the common day 
by the shutting out of the light, seemed like a sort of 
funereal, monumental chamber in all its homely shabbiness, 
a gray and colorless vault, not for him who had gone out 
of it, but for the ghosts and phantoms of all that had taken 
place there. Lily’s heart was more oppressed by the gray 
detachment of that room, in which her own life had been 
decided, than either by the serene death above or the 
serene sorrow by her side. 

When she got back. Sir Robert, very fretful, was sit- 
ting over the fire. He was hoarse and coughing, and more 
impatient than she had seen him. “ If it goes on like this. 
I’ll not stay here,” he said, ‘‘ not another week, let them 
say what they like! Four weeks of frost, a measured 
month, and as much more in that bitter sky. No. I will 
not stay ; and, however attached you are to the place, 
you’ll come with me, Lil3^ Yes, you’ll come with me! 
We’ll take up my old travelling carriage and we’ll get 
away to the South, if I were but free of this confounded 
cold! ” 

‘‘ We must take care of you, uncle. You must let us 
take care of you, and your cold will soon go.” 

‘‘You think so?” he said eagerly. “I thought you 
would think so. I never was a man for catching cold. I 
never had a bronchitis in my life ; that’s not my danger. 
If that doctor man would but come, for I thought it as 
well to send for him ? ” 


404 


He looked up at her with an enquiring look. He was 
anxious to be approved in what he had done. “ It was the 
only thing to do,” she said, and he was as glad she thought 
so as if she had been the mistress of his actions. 

But by the evening Sir Robert was very ill. He 
fought very hard for his life. He was several years over 
seventy, and there did not seem much in life to retain 
him. But nevertheless he fought hard for it, and was 
very unwilling to let it go. He made several rallies from 
sheer strength of will, it appeared. But in the end the 
old soldier had to yield, as we must all do. The long frost 
lasted, the bitter winds blew, no softening came to the 
weather or to Fate. Sir Robert died not long after the 
old minister had been laid in the grave. It was a dread- 
ful year for the old folk, every-body said ; they fell like 
the leaves in October before every wind. 


CHAPTER XLIV 

I DO not think that Lily in the least realized what had 
happened to her when her uncle died. She grieved for him 
with a very natural, not excessive, sorrow, as a daughter 
grieves for an old father whose life she is aware cannot be 
long prolonged. He was more to her than it was to be 
expected he could have been. These two years of con- 
stant intercourse, and a good deal of kindness, which 
could scarcely be called unselfish, yet was more genuine on 
that very account, had brought them into real relationship 
with each other ; and Lily, who never had known what 
family ties were, had come to regard the careless Uncle 
Robert of her youth, to whom she had been a troublesome 
appendage, as he was to her the representative of a quite 
unaffectionate authority, as a father, who, indeed, made 
many demands, but made them with a confidence and 
trust in her good feeling which were quite natural and 
quite irresistible, calling forth in her the qualities to 


405 


which that appeal was made. Sir Robert had all unawares 
served Lily, though it was his coming which was the cause 
of the great catastrophe in her life. She did not blame 
him for that — it was inevitable ; in one way or other it 
must have come — but she was grateful to him for having 
laid hands upon her, so to speak, in the failure of all 
things, and given her duties and a necessity for living. 
And now she was sorry for him, as a daughter for a father, 
let us say a married daughter, with interests of her own, 
for a father who had been all that was natural to her, but 
no more. 

She was a little dazed and confused, however, with the 
rapidity of the catastrophe, the week’s close nursing, the 
fatigue, the profound feeling which death, especially with 
those to whom his presence is new, inevitably calls forth ; 
and very much subdued and sorrowful in her mind, feeling 
the vacancy, the silence, the departure of the well-known 
figure, which had given a second fictitious life to this now 
doubly deserted place. And it did not occur to Lily to 
think how her own position was affected, or what change 
had taken place in her life. She was not an incapable 
woman, whom the management of her own affairs would 
have frightened or over-burdened, but she never had 
possessed any affairs, never had the command of any 
money, never arranged, except as she was told, where or 
how she had to live. Until her uncle had given her, when 
she went to Edinburgh, the sum which to her inexperi- 
ence was fabulous, and which she had spent chiefly in her 
vain search after her child, she had never had any money 
at all. She did not even think of it in this new change 
of afl’airs, nor of what her future fate in that resjiect 
was to be. 

This indifference was not shared by the household, or at 
least by those two important members of it Katrin and 
Robina, who had been most attentive and careful of Sir 
Robert in his illness, but who, after he was dead, having 
little tie of any kind to the old gentleman, who had been 
a good enough master and no more, dropped him as much 


406 


as it was possible to drop the idea of one who lay solemnly 
dead in the house, the centre of all its occupations still, 
though he could influence them no more. “ What will 
happen now ? ” they said to each other, putting their heads 
together, when the “strange women,” subdued by “a 
death in the house,” were occupied with their special busi- 
nesses, and Sir Robert’s man, his occupation gone, had 
retired to his chamber, feeling himself in want of rest and 
refreshment after the labors of nursing, which he had not 
undergone. “What will happen noo ? ” said Katrin. 
“ And what will we do with her ? ” Beenie said, shaking 
her large head. “I’ll tell you,” said Katrin, “the first 
thing that will happen : Before we ken where we are 
we’ll hae A'/m here! ” 

“ No, no,” said Beenie ; “ no, no! I am not expecting 
that.” 

“You may expect what ye like, but that is what will 
happen. He will come in just as he used to do, with a fib 
about the cauld of the Hielands, and a word about the 
steps that are so worn and no safe. Woman, he has the 
ball at his fit now. Do you no ken when a man’s wife 
comes into her siller it’s to him it goes ? She will have 
every thing, and well he kens that, and it’s just the reason 
of all that has come and gone.” 

“He’ll never daur,” said Beenie, “ after leaving her 
so long to herself, and after a’ that’s come and gone, as 
you say.” 

“ It’s none of his fault leaving her to hersel’. He has 
written to her and written to her, for I’ve seen the letters 
mysel’; and if she has taken no notice, it is her wyte, 
and not his. She will have a grand fortune, a’ auld 
Sir Robert’s money, and this place, that is the home o’ 
them all.” 

“ I never thought so much of this place. She’ll not 
bide here. Her and me will be away as soon as ever it’s 
decent, I will assure you o’ that, to seek the bairn over a’ 
the world.” 

“ You’ll never find him,” said Katrin. 


407 


‘‘Ay, will we ! Naebodyto say her nay, and siller in 
her pouch, and the world before her. We’ll find him if he 
were at its other end! ” 

“Ye’ll never find him without the father of him!” 
cried Katrin, becoming excited in her opposition. 

“ That swore he was dead ! ” cried Beenie, flushing, too, 
with fight and indignation, “ that stood up to my face, me 
that kent better, and threepit that the bairn was dead! 
And her that was his mother sitting by, her bonnie face 
covered in her hands!” 

“Woman !” cried Katrin, “would you keep up dis- 
peace in a house for any thing a man may have said or 
threepit ? I’m for peace, whatever it costs. What is a 
house that’s divided against itsel’ ? Scripture will tell ye 
that. Even if a man is an ill man, if he belongs to ye, 
it’s better to have him than to want him. It’s mair 
decent. Once you’ve plighted him your word, ye must 
just pit up with him for good report or evil report. If the 
father’s in one place and the mother’s in another, how are 
ye to bring up a bairn ? And a’ just for a lie the man has 
told when he was in desperation, and for taking away the 
bairn when we couldna have keepit him, when it was as 
clear as daylight something had to be done. Losh ! 
Dougal might tear the hair out o’ my head, or the claes 
frae my back, he would be my man still.” 

“ Seeing he is little like to do either the one thing or 
the other, it’s easy speaking,” Beenie said. 

Lily did not come so far as this in her thoughts till a 
day or two had passed, and then there came upon her, as 
Beenie had divined, the sudden impulse, which neverthe- 
less had been lying dormant in her mind all this time, to 
get up and go at once in pursuit of her baby. All the 
people she had employed, all the schemes she had tried, 
had come to nothing. At first her ignorant efforts had 
been balked by that very ignorance itself, by not knowing 
what to do or whom to trust, and then by distance and 
time and agents who were not very much in earnest. To 
look for a great criminal — that was a thing which might 


408 


waken all the natural detective qualities even before 
detectives were. But to look for a baby, with no glory, 
no notoriety, whatever might be one’s success ! Lily saw 
all this now with the wisdom that even a very little 
practical experience gives. But his mother — that would 
be a very different matter. His mother would find him 
wheresoever he was hidden. And after the first day of 
consternation, of confusion and fatigue, this resolution 
flashed upon her, as it had done at times through all the 
miserable months that were past. She had been obliged 
to crush it then, but now there was no occasion to crush it 
any longer. She was free ; no one had any right to stop 
her ; she was necessary to nobody, bound to nobody. So 
she thought, rejecting vehemently in her mind the idea of 
her husband, who had robbed her, who had lied to her, 
but who should not restrain her now, let the law say what 
it would. Lily did not even. know how much the property 
of her husband she was. Even in the old bad times it was 
only when evil days came that the women learned this. 
The majority of them, let us hope, went to their graves 
without ever knowing it, except in a jibe, which was to 
the address of all women. She did not think of it. 
Ronald had robbed her, had lied to her, and was separated 
from her forever ; but that he would even now attempt to 
control her did not enter into Lily’s mind. He was a 
gentleman, though these were not the acts of a gentleman. 
She did not fear him nor suspect him of any common 
offence against her. He had been guilty of these crimes — 
that was the only word to use for them — but to herself, 
Lily, he could do nothing. She had so much confidence in 
him still. Nor, indeed (she thought at first), w^ould he 
have any thing to do with it. He would know nothing ; 
she would go after her child at once, as was natural, his 
mother’s right. And he surely would not be the man to 
interfere. 

Then as she began to wait, to feel herself waiting, every 
nerve tingling and excitement rising in her veins every 
hour, in the enforced silence of the shadowed house, until 


409 


the funeral should set her free, Lily came to life alto- 
gether, she could not tell how, in a moment, waking as if 
from the past, the ice, the paralysis that had bound her. 
She had lived with her uncle these two years, and she had 
not lived at all. She had not known even what was the 
passage of time. Her existence had been mechanical, and 
all her days alike, the winter in one fashion, the summer 
in another. The child, the thought of the child, had been 
a thread which kept her to life ; otherwise there had been 
nothing. But now, when that thought of the child be- 
came active and an inspiration, her whole soul suddenly 
came to life again. It was as when the world has been 
hid by the darkness of night, and we seem to stand de- 
tached, the only point of consciousness with nothing round 
us, till between two openings of the eyelids there comes into 
being again a universe that had been hidden, the sky, the 
soil, the household walls, all in a moment visible in that 
dawn which is scarcely light, which is vision, which re- 
creates and restores all that we knew of. To Lily there came 
a change like that. She closed her eyes in the wintry black- 
ness of the night, and when she opened them, every thing 
had come back to her. It was not that she had forgotten: 
it was all there all the time ; but her heart had been 
benumbed, and darkness had covered the face of the earth. 
It was not the light or warmth of the sunrise that came 
upon her ; it was that revelation of the earliest dawn that 
makes the hidden things visible, and fills in once more the 
mountains and the moors, the earth and the sky. 

It was with a shock that she saw it all again. She had 
been wrapped in a false show, every thing vanity and 
delusion about her — Miss Ramsay, a name that was hers 
no longer ; but in reality she was Ronald Lumsden’s wife, 
the mother of a child, a woman with other duties, other 
rights. And he was there, facing her, filling up the 
world. In her benumbed state he had been almost invisi- 
ble; so much of life as she had clung to the idea of the 
baby. When he appeared to her, it was as a ghost from 
which she shrank, from which every instinct turned her 


410 


away. But dow he stood there, as he had stood all the 
time, looking her in the face. Had he been doing so all 
these years ? or had she been invisible to him as he to her ? 
She was seized with a great trembling as she asked herself 
that question. Had he been watching her through the dark 
as through the light, keeping his eye upon her, waiting ? 
She shuddered, but all her faculties became vivid, living, 
at this touch. And then there were other questions to 
ask : What would he do ? Failing that, more intimate 
still, what would she do, Lily, herself ? What, now 
that she was free, alone, with no bond upon her, what 
should she do ? This question shook her very being. She 
could go on no longer with her life of lies : what should 
she do ? 

Sir Robert’s man of business came from Edinburgh as 
soon as the news reached him. He told her that she was, 
as she had a right to be, her uncle’s sole heir, there being 
no other relation near enough to be taken into considera- 
tion at all. Should she tell him at once what her real 
position was ? It was a painful thing for Lily to do, and 
until she was able to set out upon that search for her child, 
which was still her first object, she had a superstitious 
feeling that something might happen, something that 
would detain or delay her, if she told her secret at once. 
She had arranged to go away on the morning after the 
funeral. That day, before Mr. Wallace left Dalrugas, she 
resolved that she would tell liirn, and, through him, all 
who were there. Her heart beat very loud at the thought. 
To keep it so long, and then in a moment give it up to the 
discussion of all the world ! To reveal — was it her shame ? 
Oh, shame, indeed, to have deceived every one, her uncle, 
every creature who knew her. But yet not shame, not 
shame, in any other way. Much surprised was Mr. John 
Wallace, W. S., Sir Robert’s man of business, to find 
how indifferent Miss Ramsay was as to the value and 
extent of the property her uncle had left her. She said 

Yes,” to all his statements, sometimes interrogatively, 
sometimes in simple assent ; but he saw that she did not 


411 


take them in, that the figures had no meaning for her. 
Her mind was otherwise absorbed. She was thinking of 
something. When he asked her, not without a recollec- 
tion of things he had heard, as he said to himself, “ long- 
ago,” when Sir Robert’s niece had been sent off to the 
wilds out of some young birky’s way, whether there was 
any one whom she would like specially summoned for the 
funeral, Lily looked up at him with a quick, almost 
terrified glance, and said : “ No, no! ” She had, he felt, 
certainly something on her mind. I don’t know whether, 
in those days, the existence of a private and hidden story 
was more common than now : there were always facilities 
for such things in Scotland in the nature of the marriage 
laws, and many anxious incidents happened in families. 
A man acknowledging a secret wife, of whose existence 
nobody had known, was common enough. But a young 
lady was different. At all events there could be no doubt 
that this young lady had something on her mind. 

The arrangements were all made in a style befitting Sir 
Robert’s dignity. The persons employed came from 
Edinburgh with a solemn hearse and black horses, and all 
the gloomiest paraphernalia of death. A great company 
gathered from the country all about. They had begun to 
arrive, and a number of carriages were already waiting 
round to show the respect of his neighbors for the old 
gentleman, of whom they had actually known so little. 
The few farmers w^ho were his tenants on the estate, which 
included so little land of a profitable kind among the 
moors (not yet profitable) and the mountains, waited 
outside in ^ their rough gigs, but several of the gentlemen 
had gathered in the drawing-room, where cake and wine 
were laid out upon a table, and Mr. Douglas, now the 
minister of Kinloch-Rugas, stood separate, a little from 
the rest, prepared to ‘‘give the prayer.” The Church 
of Scotland knew no burial service in those days other 
than the prayer which preceded the carrying forth of the 
coffin. Two ladies had driven over, with their husbands, 
to stay with Lily when the procession left the house. 


412 


They did not know very much of her, but they were sorry 
for her in her loneliness. The appearance of a woman at 
a funeral was an unknown thing in those days in Scot- 
land, and never thought of. This little cluster of black 
dresses was in a corner of the room, in the faint light of 
the shadowed windows, Lily’s pale face, tremulous with 
an agitation which was not grief, forming the point of 
highest light in the sombre room, among the high-colored 
rural countenances. She meant to tell them on their 
return. 

It was at this moment, in the preliminary pause, when 
Mr. Douglas, standing out in the centre of the room, was 
about to lift his hand as the signal for the prayer — about 
to begin — that a rapid step became audible, coming u]) the 
stairs, stumbling a little on the uppermost steps as most 
people did. It was nothing wonderful that some one 
should be a little late, yet there was something in the step 
which made even the most careless member of the com- 
pany look round. Lily, absorbed in her thoughts, was 
startled by the sound, she could not tell why. She moved 
her head a little, and it so happened that the gentlemen 
standing about by an instinctive movement stepped aside 
from between her and the door, so as to leave room for 
the entrance of the new-comer. He was heard to quicken 
his pace, as if fearing to be too late, and the minister 
stood with his hand raised, waiting till the interruption 
should be over and the tardy guest had appeared. 

Then the door opened quickly, and Ronald Lumsden 
came in. He was in full panoj)ly of mourning, according 
to the Scotch habit, his hat, which was in his hand, 
covered with crape, his sleeves with white “ weepers,” his 
appearance that of chief mourner. ‘‘ I am not too late ? ” 
he said, as he came in. Who was he ? Some of those 
present did not know. Was he some unacknowledged 
son, turning up at the last moment to turn* away the 
inheritance ? Mr. Wallace stepped out a little to meet 
him, in consternation. Suddenly it flashed through his 
memory that this was the young fellow out of whose way 


413 


Lily Ramsay bad been sent by ber uncle. He knew 
Liiinsden well enough. lie made a sign to bim to be 
silent, pointing to tbe minister, wbo stood interrupted, 
ready to begin. 

I see,” said Ronald in tbe proper whisper, with a 
nod of bis bead ; and then he stepped straight up, tbrougb 
tbe little lane made for bim, to where Lily sat, like an 
image of stone, her lips parted with a quick, fluttering 
breath. He took ber band and held it in bis, standing by 
ber side. “ Pardon me that I come so late,” be said, “ I 
was out of town ; but I am still in time. Mr. Wallace, 
I will take my place after tbe coffin as tbe representative 
of my wife.” This was said rapidly, but calmly, in tbe 
complete self-possession of a man wbo knows be is master 
of tbe situation. There was scarcely a pause, tbe aston- 
ished company bad scarcely time to look into each other’s 
face, when tbe proceedings went on. Tbe minister’s voice 
arose, with that peculiar cadence which is in tbe sound of 
prayer. The men stood still, arrested in their excitement, 
shuffling with their feet, covering their faces with one 
band so long as they could keep up that difficult position. 
But this was all unlike a funeral prayer. The atmosphere 
bad suddenly become full of excitement, tbe pulsations 
quickened in every wrist. 

Lily remained in ber chair ; she did not rise. It was 
one of tbe points of decorum that a woman should not be 
able to stand on such an occasion. Tbe two ladies, all one 
quiver of curiosity, stood behind ber, and Ronald by ber 
side, bolding ber band. He did not give it up, though 
she bad tried to withdraw it, but stood close b}^ ber, bold- 
ing bis bat, with its long streamers of crape, in bis other 
band, bis bead drooped a little, and bis e^^es cast down in 
reverential sympatb3\ To describe wdiat was in ber mind 
would be impossible. Her heart bad given one wild leap, 
as if it would have choked her, and then a sort of calm of 
death had succeeded. He held ber hand, pressing it softly 
from time to time. He gave no sign but this of any other 
feeling but tbe proper respectful attention, while she sat 


414 


paralyzed. And then came the stir — the movement. He 
let her hand drop, and, bending over her, touched her 
forehead with his lips ; and then he made a sign to the 
astonished men about, even to Mr. Wallace, who had 
been, up to this moment, the chief authority, to precede 
him. There was a sort of a gasp in the astonished assem- 
bly, but every one obeyed Ronald’s courteous gesture. 
There was nothing presumptuous, nothing of the upstart, 
in it : it was the calm and dignified confidence of the 
master of the house. He was the last to leave the room, 
which he did with another pressure of Lily’s hand, and a 
glance to the ladies behind, which said as distinctly as 
words : ‘‘ Take care of my wife.” And he was the first 
in the procession, placing himself at once behind the coffin. 
The burying-ground was not far away ; it was one of those 
lonely places among the hills, with a little chapel in ruins, 
a relic of an older form of faith, within its gray walls, 
which are so pathetic and so solemn. The long line of 
men walking two and two made a great show in their black 
procession, their feet ringing upon the hard frost-bound 
road. But Ronald walked alone, in front, as if he had 
been Sir Robert’s son. And his heart was full of a steady 
and sober elation. It had been a hard fight, but he had 
conquered. Though he was not a son, but an enemy, he 
was, as he had always intended. Sir Robert’s heir. 


CHAPTER XLV 

‘^But this is all very strange and requires explanation. 
I do not doubt in the least what you say, but it requires 
explanation,” Mr. Wallace said. 

Only a few of the gentlemen returned with him to the 
house. Two of them were the husbands of the two ladies 
who had been with Lily, and who now, with each a volume 
in her face, joined the surprised and curious men. Lilj^ 
too, had come back to the room. It was now that she had 


415 


intended to make her statement, and it had become un- 
necessary. Slie was saved something, and yet there was 
worse before lier than if this liad not been saved. 

There is no explanation we are not ready to give,” said 
Ronald calmly. “We were married four years ago, in the 
Manse of Kin loch -Rugas, by Mr. Douglas’s predecessor, 
dead, I am sorry to hear, the other day. My wife has tlie 
lines, which she will give you. Two witnesses of the 
marriage are in the house. Every thing is in perfect order 
and ready for any examination. The reason of the secrecy 
we were obliged to keep up was the objection of Sir 
Robert, whom we have just laid with every respect in his 
grave.” 

“ With every respect ! ” Mr. Wallace said with emphasis, 
and there was a murmur of agreement from the company 
round. 

“These are my words — with every respect. One may 
respect a man and yet fail to sacrifice one’s own happiness 
entirely to him. My wife and I were in accord as to 
saving Sir Robert any thing that might vex him in his 
old age.” 

Here Lily raised her head as if about to speak, but said 
nothing by a second thought, or perhaps by inability to 
utter any thing in the midst of the flow of his address. 

“It is unnecessary to say what it has cost us to keep up 
this, but we have done it at every risk. Our duty now is 
changed, and it is as necessary to make our position clearly 
understood as it was before to keep it private to ourselves. 
I would not allow Mrs. Lumsden to take this avowal upon 
herself, as I am sure she would have done had I not been 
here, or to encounter the fatigue of the day alone. I have 
preferred to look like an intruder, as I fear some of the 
gentlemen here must have thought me.” 

“No intruder,” said one. “No, no, to be sure, no in- 
truder,” said another. “ Not,” said a third, “ if this ex- 
traordinary story is true.” 

“That’s the whole question,” said Mr. Wallace. “My 
client knew nothing of it. He left his money to his niece 


416 


as to a single woman. The lady has always been known 
as Miss Ramsay. How are we to know it is true ? ” 

‘‘You know me, however,” said Ronald, with a smile : 
“ Ronald Lumsden, advocate, son of John, of that name, of 
Pontalloch. I think I have taken fees from you before 
now, Mr. Wallace. It is not very likely I should tell you 
such a lie as that in the lady’s face.” 

“Miss Ramsay,” said Mr. Wallace — “Lord ! if I knew 
what to call the lad}^ ! — madam, is this true ? ” 

“ It is true that I have deceived my uncle and every one 
who knew me. It has been heavy, heavy on my conscience, 
and a shame in my heart. I can look no one in the face !” 
cried Lily. “I meant to confess it to you to-day, as he 
says. Yes, it is true ! ” 

Though the house was still the house of death, accord- 
ing to all etiquette, and the blinds not yet drawn up from 
the windows, Mr. Wallace, W. S., uttered, in spite of him- 
self, a low whistle of astonishment. And then he coughed, 
and drew himself up that nobody should suspect him of 
such an impropriety. “ This is a strange case, a very 
strange case ! These gentlemen must understand that I 
had no inkling of it when I invited them here to-day.” 

“ What would it have mattered what inkling you had, 
Wallace ? ” said one of the most important of the strangers. 
“We cannot change what is done. Perhaps, indeed, there’s 
no occasion. It is a dreary moment for congratulations, 
Mrs. — Mrs. Lumsden, or I would wish you joy with a 
good heart.” 

“ You will let me thank you on ray wife’s account,” said 
Ronald. “As you say, it’s a dreary moment — and we 
have had a dreary time of it ; but that I hope is all 
over now.” 

“Overby the death of the poor gentleman that suspected 
nothing ; that has treated his niece like his own child,” 
said Mr. Wallace. “It is not a pretty thing, nor is it a 
pleasant consideration. I hope you will not think I am 
meaning any thing unkind to you. Miss Lily — I beg your 
pardon, the other name sticks in my throat. It was not 


417 


with any thought of this that my old friend left all his 
money to his niece ; and we are met here to mourn his 
death, not to give thanks with these j^oung people that it’s 
over. He was a good friend to me, gentlemen. You’ll 
excuse me ; it sticks in my throat — it sticks in my throat! ” 

“ The feeling is very natural, and I’m sure we’re all with 
you, Wallace ; but, as I was saying, what’s done cannot 
be undone,” said the first gentleman again. 

^‘And no doubt it is a painful thing for the young- 
people,” said another charitably, “ to have to tell it at this 
moment, and to have it received in such a spirit. No 
doubt they would rather have put it off to another season. 
It’s honest of them, I will say for one, not to put it off.” 

And there’s the will, I suppose, to read,” said another, 
‘‘ and the days are short. My presence is certainly not 
indispensable, and I think I must be getting home.” 

You will not take it unkind, Mrs. Lumsden, if we all 
say the same. It’s enough to give the horses their deaths, 
standing about in the cold.” 

“ There’s no difficulty about the will,” said Mr. Wallace. 

It is just leaving all to her, and no question about it. 
Scarcely any thing more but a legacy or two to the 
servants. He was a thoughtful man for all that were 
kind to him. You can see the will when you please at my 
office, and the business can be put into your hands, Lums- 
den, when you please. I suppose you’re not intending 
to remain here ? ” 

That is as my wife pleases,” said Honald. “ In that 
respect I can have no will but hers.” 

And then they all stood for a moment, in the natural 
awkwardness of such a breaking up. No will read ; 
nothing to make a natural point of conclusion. The 
ladies came to the rescue, as was their part. One of them, 
touched by pity, took Lily into her arms, and spoke 
' tenderly in her ear. 

“ My dear, you must not blame yourself beyond 
measure,” she said. ‘‘ You were very good to the old man. 
I have thought for a long time you had something on 
27 


418 


your mind. But if you had been his daughter ten times 
over, and had a conscience void of offence, you could not 
have been a better bairn to the old man.” 

‘‘ Thank you for saying so,” said Lily. “ I will remem- 
ber you said it as long as I live.” 

‘‘ Hoot ! ” said the kind woman, “ you will soon be 
thinking of other things. I will come back soon to see 
you, and you must just try to forgive yourself, my dear.” 
She paused a moment, and Lily divined that she would 
have said, and 4^m,” but these words did not come. 

“We will all come back — and bring our good wishes — 
another day,” said this lady’s husband, and then they all 
shook hands with her, with at least a show of cordiality, 
the half-dozen men feeling to Lily like a crowd, the other 
lady saying nothing to her but a half-whispered good-by. 
Ronald elaborately shook hands with them all, with a little 
demonstration again as of the master of the house. He 
went to the door with them, seeing them off, enquiring 
about their carriages. He was perfectly good-mannered, 
courteous, friendly, but showing a familiarity with the 
place, warning the strangers of the dark corners, and 
especially of that worn step at the top of the stairs, which 
was positively dangerous, Ronald said, and must be seen 
to at once, and with an assumption of the position of the 
man of the house which did not please the country 
neighbors. He was too well acquainted witli every thing, 
too pat with all their names, overdoing his part. 

“ Oh, Miss Lily, Miss Lily,” cried old Wallace, who had 
not called her by that name since she was a child, “ how 
could you deceive him ? a man that trusted in you with 
all his heart ! ” 

“ Nobody can blame me,” said Lily drearily, “ as I blame 
mj^self.” 

“ You would never have had his money had he known. 
The will’s all right, and nobody can contest it, but that 
siller would burn my fingers if it were me. I would have 
no enjoyment in it. I would think it a fortune dearly 
bought.” 


419 


The money — was I thinking about the money ? ” Lily 
cried, with a touch of scorn which brought back its natural 
tone to lier voice. 

“ No, I dare swear you were not,” said the old gentle- 
man ; “but if not you, there were others. It’s never a 
good thing to play with money: either it sticks to your 
fingers and defiles you, or it’s like a canker on your good 
name. He’s away to his account, that maybe had some- 
thing to answer for. He should have given you your 
choice — your lad or my siller. He should have put it into 
words. He should have given you your choice.” 

“ He did,” said Lily, almost under her breath. 

“ He did ! I’m glad to hear it — it was honest of him — 
and you — thought it better to have them both. I under- 
stand now. It was maybe wise, but not what I would 
have expected of you.” 

Lily had not a word to say ; she had hidden her face in 
her hands. 

“Mr. Wallace,” said Ronald, coming back, “ I cannot 
have my wife questioned in my absence about things for 
which, at the utmost, she is only partially to blame. I am 
here to answer for her, and myself, too.” 

“You will have enough to do with yourself. Did you 
think, sir, you were to come and let olf a surprise on us 
all, and claim Sir Robert’s money, and receive his inheri- 
tance, and never a word said ? ’’ 

“ If it eases your mind, say as many words as you like! ” 
cried Ronald cheerfully; “they will not hurt either Lily 
or me — precious balms that do not break the head! ” 

^‘I would just like, my young sir, to punish ye well for 
your mockery of the Holy Scriptures, if not of me ! ” 

“ The punishment is not in your hand,” said Lily, un- 
covering her pale face. “We are not clear of it, nor ever 
will be ; it will last as long as our lives.” 

“ I can well believe that,” said old Wallace. He put up 
the papers with which the table was strewn into his bag. 
“You can come to me in my office when you like, Mr, 
Lumsden, and I will show you every thing. It’s unneces- 


420 


sary that you and me should go over it here,” he said, 
snapping the bag upon them, almost with vehemence. 

She’s badly hurt enough ; there is no occasion for turn- 
ing the knife in the wound. I will leave you to make it 
up within yourselves,” he said. 

Once more Ronald accompanied the departing guest 
down stairs. He called Mr. Wallace’s clerk ; he helped 
Mr. Wallace to mount into the geeg which awaited him. 
No master of a house could have been more attentive, 
more careful of his guest. He wrought the old gentleman 
up to such a pitch of exasperation that he almost swore — 
a thing which occurred to him only in the greatest emer- 
gencies ; and that it was all he could do to prevent himself 
from using his whip upon the broad shoulders of the inter- 
loper who was thus speeding the parting guests. But the 
exigencies of the coach, which he had to get at Kinloch- 
Rugas at a certain hour, prevented much further delay. 
And Ronald stood and watched the departure of the angry 
man of business in the Kinloch-Rugas geeg with a sensa- 
tion of relief. Was it relief ? He was glad to get rid of 
him, no doubt, and of all the consternation and disapproval 
with which his appearance had been greeted. No one now 
had any right to say a word — the first and greatest ordeal 
was over. But yet there remained something behind 
which made Ronald’s nerves tingle ; all that was outside 
had passed away. He had now to confront alone an 
antagonist still more alarming : his Lily, whom he loved 
in spite of every thing, whose image had filled this gray 
old place with sweetness, who had always, up to their last 
meeting, been sweet to him, sweeter than words could 
say — his first and only sweetheart, his love, his wife. 
Now all the strangers were gone the matter was be- 
tween him and her alone. And Ronald, though he was 
so sensible and so strong, was, for the first time, afraid. 

He came upstairs slowly, collecting himself for what was 
before him ; not without a pause at the top to examine 
again that defective step, which he had so often remarked 
upon, which now must be seen to at once. He had accom- 


421 


plisbed all he bad hoped. Sir Robert bad not even kept 
him long waiting. Two years was not a very long time to 
wait ; two years in comparison with the lifetime that lay 
before Lily and himself was nothing. They were young, 
and with this foundation of Sir Robert’s fortune every 
thing was at their feet : all that his profession could give, 
all its prizes and honors, all that was best in life — the ease 
of never having to think or scheme about money, the un- 
speakable freedom and exemption from petty cares which 
that insures. To do him justice, he did not think -of the 
money itself. He thought that now, whether he was suc- 
cessful or unsuccessful, Lily was safe — that she would have 
no struggle to undergo, no discomfort — while, at the same 
time, he was very sure now that he would be successful, 
tliat every thing was possible to him. A modest fortune 
to begin with, enough to keep the wife and family com- 
fortable, whatever hajDpens, and to free liim from every 
thought but how to make the best of himself and his 
powers — was not that the utmost that a man could desire, 
the best foundation ? He went back to his Lily, sa3nng 
all this to himself, but he could not get his heart up to the 
height of that elation which had possessed him when he 
had put on liis weepers and his crape for Sir Robert. He 
had not quite recognized the drawbacks then. Half of 
them — oh, more than half of them — had been got over. 
There only remained Lily: Lily, his wife, who loved him, 
for whom he had in store the most delightful of surprises, 
to whom lie could show now, fully and freel}^, without fear 
of any man, how much he loved her, whose future life he 
should care for in every detail, letting her feel the want of 
nothing ; oh, far better than that — the possession of every 
thing that heart of woman could desire. 

She was sitting as he had left her, in a large chair drawn 
out almost into the centre of the room — a sort of chair of 
state, where she, as the object of all sympathy, had been 
surrounded by her compassionate friends. It chilled him 
a little to see her there. She wanted that encirclement 
the ladies behind her, supporting her, the surrounding of 


m 


sympathetic faces. Now that position meant only isola- 
lation, separation ; it gave the aspect of one alone in the 
world. He went up to her, making a little use of this as 
a man skilled in taking advantage of every incident, and 
took her hand. “Lily, my darling, let me put you in 
another place. Here is the chair you used to sit in. Come, 
it will be more like yourself.” 

“ I am very well where 1 am,” she said. 

There was the chair beside the fire where she had once 
been used to sit. How suggestive these dumb things, 
these mere articles of furniture, are when they have once 
taken the impress of our mortal moods and ways ! It had 
been pushed by chance, by the movement of many people 
in the room, into the very position which Lily had occupied 
so often, with her lover, her husband, hanging over her or 
close beside her, in all the closeness of their first union, 
when the snow had built its dazzling drifts on every road, 
and shut them out from all the world. To both their 
minds there came for a moment the thought of that, the 
sensation of the chill fresh air, the white silence, the brill- 
iance of the sun upon the sparkling crystals. But it was 
a hard and bitter frost that enveloped them now — black 
skies and earth alike, every sound ringing harshly through. 
Lily sat unmoving. She looked at him with what seemed 
a stern calm. She seemed to herself to have suffered all 
tliat could be suffered in so short a space of time, the 
shame of her story all laid bare — her story, which had so 
different an aspect now, no longer the story of a true, 
if foolish and imprudent, love, but of calculation, of fraud, 
of a long, bold, ably planned deception for the sake of 
money. Her neighbors did not, indeed, think so of her, or 
speak so of her, as they jogged along the frost-bound roads, 
talking of nothing but this strange incident ; but she 
thought they were doing so, and her heart was seared and 
burned up with shame. 

He drew a chair near to her and laid his hand upon hers. 
“ Lily ! ” he said. 

She did not move ; the touch of his hand made her start. 


428 


but did not affect her otherwise. “ There is no need for 
that,” she said, somehow with an air as if she scorned even 
to withdraw her hand, which was so cold and irresponsive. 
She added with a long-drawn breath : ‘‘You can tell me 
what you want — now that you have got what you want. 
It is all that need be said between you and me.” 

“ Lily,” he said, lifting her hand, which was like a piece 
of ice, and holding it between his, “what I want is you. 
What is any thing I can get or wish for without you ?” 

She withdrew her hand with a little force. “ All that,” 
she said, “ is over and past. Why should so sensible a 
man as you are try to keep up what is ended, or to go on 
speaking a language which is — which has lost its meaning ? 
You and I are not what we were ; I at least am not what 
I was.” 

“ You are my wife, Lily.” 

“ Yes, the more’s the pity — the more’s the pity ! ” she 
cried. 

“ That’s not what I should ever have expected from you. 
You are angry, Lily, and I confess there are things which 
I have done — in haste, or on the spur of the moment, or 
considering our joint interests perhaps more, my dear, than 
your feelings ” 

“It would be well,” cried Lily with some of her old 
animation, “ to decide which it was — a hasty impulse, as 
you say, on the spur of the moment, or our joint interests, 
which I deny for one ! I never for a day was for any thing 
but honesty and openness, and no interest of mine was in 
it. But at least make up your mind. It was either in your 
haste or it was your calculation — it could not be both.” 

“ I did not think you would ever bring logic against 
me,” he said. 

“ Because I was an ignorant girl — and so I was, believ- 
ing every thing you said, so many things that turned out 
one after another to be untrue : that you were to take me 
home at once as soon as the snow was over ; that you were 
to get a house at Whit-Sunday, at Martinmas, and then at 
another Whit-Sunday, and then ” Lily had allowed 


424 


herself to run on, having once begun to speak, as women 
are apt to do. She stopped herself now with an effort. 
‘‘Of these things words can be said, but of what remains 
there are no words to speak. I will not try ! I will not 
try ! You have tramj^led on my heart and my soul and 
my life to your own end — my uncle’s money, my poor 
uncle that believed me, every word I said ! And now I 
ask, what do you want more? Let me know it, and if I 
can, I will do it.” 

“ Do you know,” he cried, suddenly grasping her hand 
again with an almost fierce clutch, “ that you can do noth- 
ing but what I permit ? You are my wife, you have 
nothing, your uncle’s money or any other, but what I give 
you. You’re not your own to do what you like with j^our- 
self, as you seem to think, but mine to do what I like, and 
nothing else. If we’re to play at that, Lily, j^ou must 
know that the strong hand is with me ! ” 

“ So it appears,” she said, with a fierce smile, looking at 
her fingers, crushed together, with the blood all pressed 
out of them, as he dropped her hand. His threat, his defi- 
ance, did not enter into her mind in all its force. Even in 
those days such a bondage of one reasonable creature to 
another was at first impossible to conceive. And Ronald 
was quick to change his tone. Of all things in the world 
the last he wanted was to enter into the enjoyment of Sir 
Robert’s fortune without his wife. 

“ Lily,” he said, “ Heaven knows it is far from my wish 
to be Un-annical to you. There is no happiness for me in 
this world without you. If you can do without me, I can- 
not do without you. Am I saying I am without fault ? 
No, no ! I’ve done wrong, I’ve done many things wrong. 
But not beyond forgiveness, Lily — surely not that ? What 
I did I thought was for the best. If I had thought you 
would not understand me, would not make allowance for 
me — but I believed you would trust me as I trusted you. 
Anyway, Lily, forgive me. We’re bound till death us 
part. Forgive me ; a man can say no more than that.” 

He was sincere enough at least now. And Lily’s heart 


425 


was torn with that mingling of attraction and strong re- 
pulsion which is the worst of all such unnatural separations. 
She said at last : ‘‘ I am going away to-morrow, Beenie and 
me. I had it settled before. You will not stop that. If 
you will give your help, I will be thankful. Nothing 
in this world, you or any other, can come between me and 

that ! If it is a living bairn, or if it is a green grave ” 

Lily stopped, her voice choked, unable to say a word more. 


CHAPTER XLVI 

Lily was no more visible that day. She retired to her 
room, having, indeed, much need of repose, and to be alone 
and think over all that had passed. He said a great deal 
more to her than is here recorded ; but Lily’s powers of 
comprehension were exhausted, or she did not listen, or her 
mind was so much absorbed in her own projects that she 
was not aware what he said. His presence produced an 
agitation in her mind which was indescribable. At first 
the sense that he was there, the mere sight of him, after 
all that had come and gone, was intolerable to her. But 
after a while this changed ; his voice became again familiar 
to her ears, his presence recalled a hundred and a hundred 
recollections. This was the man whom she had chosen 
from all the world, whose coming had made this lonely 
house bright, who had changed her lonely life and every 
thing in it, who was hers, her love, her husband, the one 
man in the world to Lily. There was no such man living, 
she said to herself sternly, as the Honald of her dreams ; 
but yet this was the being who bore his name, who bore 
his semblance, who spoke to her in a voice which had tones 
such as no other voice had, and made her heart beat in 
spite of herself. This w^as Honald — not her Ronald, but 
Ronald himself — the man who had deceived her and made 
her a deceiver, who had robbed her of her child in her 
weakness, when she could not go after him, and swore to 


426 


her a lie that the child was dead. All that was true ; but 
it is not much of a love which dies with the discovery that 
the object of it is unworthy. She had thought it had done 
so ; all things had seemed easy to her so far as he was con- 
cerned. But now Lily discovered that life was not so easy 
as that. The sound of his voice, that so familiar voice 
which had said so much to her, bad gone through all these 
delusions like a knife. Was he to blame that she had 
made a hero of him, that she had endowed him with 
qualities he did not possess ? This was Ronald, the real 
man, and there was between him and her the bond of all 
bonds, that which can never be broken. And she saw con- 
fusedly that there had been no false pretences on his part, 
that he had been the same tliroughout, if it had not been 
that her eyes were blinded and she saw her own imagina- 
tion only. The same man ; she did not do him the injus- 
tice to think that he had been a cheat throughout, that he 
had not loved her. It was not so simple as that either ; 
but he had determined with that force which some men 
have that she should not lose her fortune. Already her 
heart, excusing him, put it that way ; and he liad, through 
all obstacles, carried out this determination. Was it her 
part to blame him ? and even if that were her part, was it 
the part of a woman never to forgive ? 

I do not say that these were voluntarily Lily’s thoughts ; 
but she had become, as she had never been before, the field 
of battle where a combat raged in which she herself seemed 
to have comparatively little part. When the one side had 
made its fiery assault, then the other came in. There rose 
up in her with all these meltings and softenings a revulsion 
of her whole being against Ronald, the man who had made 
her lie. Into what strange thing had he turned her life 
for all these years ? A false thing, full of concealments, 
secrets, terrors of discovery. He had led her on from lie 
to lie, and then when the climax of all came, there had 
been no mercy, no relenting, no remorse in his breast. He 
had torn her child from her without care for him or for her, 
risking the lives of both, and leaving in the bosom of the 


427 


outraged mother a wound which could never be healed. 
She felt it now as fresh as when she awakened from her 
illness and came to life again by means of the pain — even 
now, when perhaps, perhaps that wrong was to be put 
right and her child given back to her. If he were in her 
arms now, it would still be there. Such a blow as that was 
never to be got over ; and it had been inflicted for what? 
For no high motive of martyrdom — for the money, the 
horrible money, which now, at the cost of so many lies and 
outrages of nature, had fallen into his hands. 

Oh, no, no ! things are not so easy in this world between 
human creatures made of such strange elements as those 
of which it lias pleased the Master of all things to com- 
pound us. It is not all straightforward : love — or else not 
love, perhaps hate. Love was on every side, the heart 
crying out toward another that was its mate, and at the 
same time an insupportable repugnance, revulsion, turning 
away. He was all that she had in the world ; all protec- 
tion, companionship, support, that was possible to her was 
in him ; and yet her heart sickened at him, turning away, 
feeling the great gulf fixed which was between them, 
This great conflict within deadened Lily to all that was 
going on outside. She was too much occupied with the 
struggle even to see, much less feel, the state of alfairs 
round her. What she did herself she did mechanically, 
carrying on what she had intended beforehand, with the 
waning strength of that impulse which had originated in 
her before this battle began. She remembered still what 
she had resolved to do then, and did it dully, without 
much consciousness. She had made up her mind to go off 
at once upon her search. Had any thing occurred to pre- 
vent her doing this? She could not tell, but she went on 
in so different a way, carrying out her resolution. She 
counted her money, which was all hers now, about which 
she could have no scruples. There was some of the house- 
keeping money, which still she herself felt was her uncle’s, 
intrusted to her, but which certainly, when she came to 
think of it, was her own now, and some which Sir Robert 


428 


had given her, about which tliere could be no question. 
It seemed a large sum of money to her inexperience — if 
only she knew where to go, and what to do ! 

Robina was packing, or appearing to pack — a piece of 
work which ought to* have been done before now. Lily 
reproved her for being so late, but not with any energy. 
The things outside of her were but half realized, she was 
so busy within. Beenie was in a curious state, not good 
for much. She wept into the box over which she stooped, 
dropping tears on her mistress’s linen when she did not 
succeed in intercepting them with her apron. But thougli 
she wept all the time, she sometimes broke into a laugh 
under her breath, and then sobbed. It was evident that 
she had no heart for her packing. She put in the most 
incongruous things and then took them out again, and 
would rise up stealthily from her knees when Lilj^’s back 
was turned, and run to the window, coming back again 
witli a liasty Naething, naething, mem ! ” when her mis- 
tress remarked this, and asked what she wanted. Down 
stairs — but Lily did not see it, nor would have remarked it 
had she seen — Katrin stood at the open door. She had her 
hand curved over her eyes, thougli there was no sunshine 
to prevent her from seeing clearly any thing that might 
appear on the long, dark, frost-bound road. Half the 
morning, to the neglect of ever}'- thing within, Katrin stood 
looking out. It was a curious thing for the responsible 
housekeeper of the house — the cook, with her lunch and 
her dinner on her mind — to do ; and so the otlier servants 
said to themselves, "watching her with great curiosity. 
Were there any more ferlies ” coming, or what was it 
that Katrin was expecting from the town ? 

Of these things Lily took no notice. She went into the 
drawing-room ready for her journey, conscious tliat she 
must see her husband before she left the liouse, but with a 
great failing of heart and strength, wishing only to get 
away, to be alone, to go on with the terrible struggle in 
her thoughts. There was no one there when she went in, 
and it was a relief to her. She sat down to recover her 


429 


strength, to recover her breath. She had told him that she 
was going, and so far as she could remember he had made 
no opposition. She had appealed to him to help her, but 
so far as she knew he had not attempted to do so. It was 
not yet quite time to go, and Beenie was behindhand, as 
she always was. Lily was glad, if the word could be used 
at all ill respect to her feelings at this moment, of the 
little quiet, the time to breathe. 

There was, however, some strange commotion going on 
in the house — a sound outside of cries and laughter, a loud 
note of Beenie’s voice in the adjacent room, and then the 
rush of her heavy footsteps downstairs. There arose in 
Lily’s mind a vague wonder at the evanescence of all im- 
pressions in the women’s minds. They had all wept plen- 
tifully the day before at the funeral, and spoken with 
sickly stifled voices, as if they had been not only sorrow- 
ful, but bowed down Avith trouble. And now there was 
Beenie, loud with a shriek of what sounded like joy, and 
Katrin’s voice rising over a little babel of confused sound, 
in exclamations and outcries of delight. What could have 
changed their tone so suddenly ? But Lily asked herself 
the question very vaguely, having no attention to give to 
them. The only external thing that could have thoroughly 
roused her would have been her husband’s step, and the 
thrill of being face to face with him again. 

It was not long before the sound of approaching foot- 
steps made her heart leap into the wildest agitation again. 
The noise had gone on down stairs, the cries of delight, the 
sound of sobbing, and for one moment something — a small 
brief note which made Lily start even in her self- absorp- 
tion. But she had not heeded more than that one quick 
heart-beat of surprise. Was that at last Ronald’s step 
coming quickly up the winding stair? She clasped her 
hands flrmly together, and wound herself up as best she 
could for this meeting, the interview which would perhaps 
be their last. Her eyes were fixed upon the door. She 
Avas conscious of sitting there rigidly, like a figure of stone, 
though her being Avas full of every kind of agitation. 


430 


And then there was a pause. He had not come in. Why 
did he not come in ? 

Finally the door was slowly opened, but at first no one 
appeared. Then tliere was a whisper and another sound — 
a sound that went through and tlirough the listening, wait- 
ing, agitated woman, who seemed to have no power to 
move, and then 

There came in something white into the room, a little 
speck upon the darkness of the walls and carpet — low down, 
white, with something like a rose above the whiteness. 
This was what Lily saw : her eyes were dim and every 
thing was confused about her. Then the speck moved 
forward slowly with tottering, uncertain movements, the 
whiteness and the rose wavering. There came a great cry 
in Lily’s heart, but she uttered not a word ; a terror, lest 
any movement of hers should dispel the vision, took pos- 
session of her. She rose up noiselessly, and then, not 
knowing what she did, dropped upon her knees. The little 
creature paused, and Lily, in her semi-conscious state, 
became aware of the blackness of her own figure in her 
mourning, and the great bonnet and veil that covered her 
head. Noiselessly she undid the strings and threw them 
behind her, scarcely breathing in her suspense. The child 
moved again toward her, relieved, too, by the removal of 
that blackness, and Lily put out her arms. How can I tell 
wbat followed? She could not, nor ever knew. The 
child did not shriek or cry, as by all rules he should have 
done. He rolled and wavered, the rose growing distinct 
into a little face, with a final rush into his mother’s arms. 
And for a moment, an hour — how long was it? — Lily felt 
and knew nothing but that again she had her baby in her 
arms — her baby, that had been snatched from her uncon- 
scious, that came back to her with infantile perceptions, 
smiles, love in its face ! She had her baby in her arms, not 
shrinking from her, as she had figured him to herself a 
hundred times, but putting up his little hands to her face, 
pleased with her, not discomposed with her kisses, putting 
his soft cheek against hers ; the one was as soft as the 


431 


other, and as the warm blood rose in Lily’s veins and the 
light came to her eyes and the joy to her heart, as softly, 
warmly tinted, too, one rose against another. She forgot 
herself and all about her — time and space, and all her reso- 
lutions and her struggle and strain with herself, and her 
mourning and her wrongs. Other people came into the 
room and stood round, women crying, laughing, unable to 
do any thing but exclaim and sob in their delight. But 
Lily took no notice. She had her child against her heart, 
and her heart was healed. She could not think where all 
the pain had gone. Her breath came free and soft, her 
life sat lightly on her, her cares were over. She wanted 
to know nothing, see nothing, hear nothing more. 

But this could not be. In another minute Ronald came 
into the room quickly, no doubt full of anxiety, but full 
also of the energy of a man who has the command of the 
situation and means to settle it in every way, not unkindly, 
but yet authoritatively. With a word he dispersed the 
women, stopping their outcries, which had been a sort of 
accompaniment to the song of content that was in Lily’s 
heart, and then he came quickly forward and put his arm 
round the group of the mother and child. He pressed 
them to him and kissed them, first his wife and then the 
baby, who sat on her knee. “ How all is well,” he said ; 
“ my Lily, all is well ! Every thing is forgiven and for- 
gotten, and you and me are to begin again ! ” 

Then Lily came suddenly back out of her rapture. She 
came back to the life to which he called her, in which he 
had played so strange a part. How her heart had melted 
toward him when he was not there ! To be Ronald had 
seemed to her by moments to be every thing. But now 
that he was here, kneeling before her, his child on her 
knee, his arms around her, his kiss on her cheek, there 
rose up between them a wall as of iron, something which 
it seemed impossible should ever give way, a repulsion 
stronger than her own will, stronger than herself. She 
made an involuntary movement to free herself. And her 
face changed, the rose-hues went out of it, the light from 


432 


her eyes. All well ! IIow could all be well ? Two years, 
during which this child had been growing into conscious- 
ness in another house, with other care, with neither father 
nor mother ; and she left widowed and bereft, to play 
a lying part and be another creature — not what she was ! 
And all for money, money — nothing better ! And now 
the money was won by all those lies and decej^tions, now 
all was to be well ? 

Let me be,” she said hoarsely, ‘‘ let me be ! A little 
rest, I want a rest. I am not equal to any more.” 

He got up to his feet, repulsed and angry. “ You do 
not think what I am equal to,” he said, or hesitate to 
inflict on me what punishment, what cruelty, you please ! 
And yet every thing that has been done was done in your 
own interests, and who but you will get the good of 
it all?” 

‘‘ My interests ? ” Lily cried. 

And then there came an unexpected interruption. The 
baby, for all so young as he was, became aware of the 
change of aspect of things around him. His little rose- 
lip began to quiver, and then he set up a lamentable cry 
which, to the inexperienced heart of Lily, was far more 
dreadful than ever was the cry of a child. As she tried to 
soothe him there appeared in the doorway Margaret Bland, 
the woman who had taken him away. And Lily gave a 
cry like that of her child, and clung to the baby, who, for 
his small part, struggled to get to his nurse, the only 
familiar figure to him in all this strange place. ‘‘Not 
you,” cried Lily, “ not that woman who stole him from 
me ! Beenie ! not you, not you ! ” 

“ And yet, mem,” said Margaret, “ it is me that has 
been father and mother and all to him when none of you 
came near. And the darling is fond o’ me and me of him 
like my own flesh and blood.” 

“ Beenie, Beenie ! ” cried Lily, wild with terror, as the 
child slid and struggled out of her arms. “Katrin, Katrin ! 
oh, don’t leave her, not for a moment — don’t let her take 
him away ! ” 


433 


Once more the cloud of women appeared at the door, all 
the maids of the house delighted over the child, and Beenie 
in the front, seizing Margaret by the skirts as she gathered 
up the child in her arms. Na, na, she’ll no take him an 
inch out o’ my sight ! ” Beenie cried. 

Lily stood up trembling, breathless, confronting her 
husband as this little tumult swept away. A passion of 
terror had succeeded her rapture of love and content ; and 
yet there was a compunction in it and almost a touch of 
shame. That chorus of excited women did not add to the 
dignity of her position. He had not said any thing, but 
was walking up and down the room in impatience and 
annoyance. Who do you think would take him from 
yownow?'^'* he cried in his exasperation, adding fuel to 
the fire. 

Oh, not now ! There were no interests to be involved 
now ; the money was safe, for which all these hideous 
plans had been laid. If this was meant to soothe, it was 
an ill-choseii word. And for a moment these two people 
stood on the edge of one of those angry recriminations 
which aggravate every quarrel and take all dignity and all 
reason from the breach. Ronald perceived his mistake 
even before Lily could take any advantage of it, had she 
been disposed so to do. 

‘‘ Lily,” he said, ‘‘ your life and mine have to be decided 
now. There is neither credit nor comfort in the position 
of deadly opposition which you have taken up. I may 
have sinned against you. I told you what was not true 
about the child, I acknowledge that. I should not have 
pretended he was dead. I saw my mistake as soon as I had 
committed it, but it was as ineffectual as it was wrong. 
You did not believe me for a minute, therefore I did no 
harm. The rest was all inevitable ; it could not be helped. 
Enough has been said on that subject. But all necessity 
for these expedients is over now. Every thing is plain 
sailing before us ; we have the best prospects for our life. 
I can promise that no woman will have a better husband 
than you will find me. You have a beautiful healthy child 
28 


434 


who takes to you as if you had never been parted from him 
for a day. We have a good house to step into- ” 

‘‘ What house ? ” she cried, surprised. 

“ Oh, not the garret you were so keen about,” he 
answered, a smile creeping about the corners of his mouth, 
“ a house worthy of you, fit for you — the house in George 
Square ! ” 

“Uncle Robert’s house!” she cried, almost with a 
shriek. 

“ Yes,” he said, “ to which you are the rightful heir, as 
you are to his money. They are both very safe, I assure 
you, in my hands.” 

“You are,” she said breathlessly, “the proprietor — 
now ? ” 

“ Through you, my bonnie Lily ; but there is no mistake 
or deception about that,” he said, with a short laugh; 
“ they are very safe in my hands.” 

No man could be less conscious than Ronald, though he 
was a man full of ability and understanding, of the effect 
of these words of his triumph upon his wife’s mind. He 
thought he was setting before her in the strongest way the 
advantages there were for her, and both, in agreement and 
peaceful accord, and how prejudicial to her own position 
and comfort any thing else would be. He was perhaps a 
little carried away by his success. Even the experiment 
of this morning — how thoroughly successful it had been ! 
The child might have been frightened and turned away 
from the unknown mother : instead of this, by a providen- 
tial dispensation, he had gone to her without hesitation 
and behaved himself angelically. How any woman in her 
senses could resist all the inducements that lay before her, 
all the excellent reasons there were to accept the present 
and ignore the past — in which nothing had been done that 
was not for her interest — he could not tell. He began to 
be impatient with such folly, and to think it might be well 
to let her have a glimpse of what, if she rejected this 
better part, lay on the other side. 

Lily had seated herself once more in her chair ; it was 


435 


the great chair she had occupied when the funeral party 
assembled, and gave her something of the aspect of a 
judge. She had lost altogether tlie color and brightness 
that had come into her face. She was very pale, and the 
blackness of her mourning made this more visible. And; 
she sat silent, oh, not convinced, as he hoped — far from that 
— but struck dumb, not knowing what to sa}^ 

At this moment, however, there was another interrup- 
tion, and the little figure of Helen Blythe, covered, too, 
with crape and mourning, but with a natural glow and 
subdued brightness as always upon her morning face, ap- 
peared at the door. 


CHAPTER XL VII 

Helen was in all her crape, and yet her upper garment 
was not “ deep,” like that of a woman in her first woe. It 
was a cloak which suggested travelling rather than any 
formality. And it appeared that the bright countenance 
with which she came in was one of sympathy for Lil}^, 
rather tlian of any cheerfulness of her own. She came 
forward holding out both her hands, having first deposited 
her umbrella against the wall. “ I am glad, glad,” she 
said, “ of all this that I hear of you, Lily : that you have 
got your husband to take care of yon, and, it appears, a 
delightful bairn. I knew there was something more than, 
ordinary between you two,” she said, stopping to shake 
hands with Ronald in his turn. And vexed, vexed was I 
to see that Mr. Lumsden disappeared when old Sir Robert 
came. It must have been a dreadful trial to you, my poor 
Lily. But I never knew it had gone so far. Married in 
my own parlor, by my dear father, and not a word to me — 
Lily, it was not kind ! ” 

Lily had no reply to make to this. It carried her away 
into a region so far distant, so dim, like a fairy-tale. 

‘‘ But my dear father,” said Helen, “ had little confi- 


436 


dence in my discretion, and he might think it better 
I should know nothing, in case I should betray myself — 
and you. Oh, how hard it must have been many a time 
to keep your secret ; and when your child came, poor 
Lily, poor Lily ! But I do not yet understand about the 
bonnie bairn. They tell me he is a darlin’. But did he 
come to you in a present, as we used to think the babies 
did when we were children, or by what witchcraft did you 
manage all that, Lily, my dear ? ” 

‘^And where did you hear this story that you have 
on your fingers’ ends?” said Ronald, interrupting these 
troublesome questions. 

“Well,” said Helen, half offended, “if I have it on my 
fingers’ ends, it is that I take so much interest in Lily and 
all that concerns her — and you, too,” she added, fearing 
that what she had said might sound severe. “ You forget, 
that there were two years when we saw you often, and 
then two years that we saw you not at all ; and often and 
often my father would ask about you. ‘ Where is that 
young Mr. Lumsden ? ’ ‘ Plave you no word of that 
young Mr. Lumsden ? ’ He was very much taken up 
about you, and why you did not come back, nor any word 
of you. To be sure, he had his reasons for that, knowing 
more than the like of me.” 

“ Those very reasons should have shown him how I 
could not come back ! ” said Ronald sharply. “ But you 
have not told me where it was you got this story, which 
few know.” 

“ Well — not to do her any harm if you think she should 
have been more discreet — it was Katrin that told me. She 
is a kind, good, honest woman. She was just out of her- 
self with joy at the coming of the dear bairn. You will 
let me see him, Lil}^ ?” 

“ You look as if you were going on a journey. Oh, 
Helen, where are you going ? ”■ cried Lily, glad to interrupt 
the questions, and to give herself also a moment’s time to 
breathe. 

“ Yes, I am going on a journey,” Helen said, steadfastly 


437 


looking her friend in the face. Her eyes were clear ; her 
color, as usual, softly bright, not paled by the crape, or by 
her genuine, but not excessive, grief. She had mourned 
for her father as truly as she had nursed him, but not 
without an acknowledgment that he had lived out his life 
and departed in the course of nature. By this time, though 
but ten days of common life had succeeded the excitement 
and commotion of Mr. Blythe’s funeral, at which the whole 
countryside had attended, Helen had returned to the 
ordinary of existence, and to the necessity of arranging 
her own life, upon which there was now no bond. The 
plea of the assistant and successor (now minister) of Kiii- 
loch-Rugas that there should be no breach in it at all, 
that she should accept his love and remain in the house 
where she was born as his wife, had not moved her mind 
for a moment. She had shaken her head quietly, but very 
decisively, sorry to hurt him or any creature, yet fully 
knowing her own mind ; and, in so far as she could do so 
in the village, Helen had made her preparations. She had 
a little land and a little money, the one in the bands of a 
trustworthy tenant, the other very carefully, very safely, 
invested by her father with the infinite precautions of a 
man to whom his little fortune was a very great matter, 
affecting the very course of the spheres. Helen had boldly, 
with indeed an unspeakable hardihood, notwithstanding 
the horror and remonstrances of the man of business, taken 
immediate steps to withdraw her money and get it into her 
possession. All this was done very quietly, very quickly, 
and, by good luck, favorably enough. And then she made 
arrangements for her venture, the great voyage into the 
unknown. 

‘‘ Yes,” she said, I am going on a journey. You will 
perhaps guess where — or if not where, for I am not just 
clear on that point myself, you will at least know with 
what end. I have nothing to keep me back now ” — a little 
moisture came into Helen’s eyes, but that did not affect 
her steady, small voice — and only him in the world that 
needs me. I am going to Alick, Lily. You will tell me 


438 


it’s rash, as every-body does, and maybe it is rash. If he 
lias wearied at the last and given up all thoughts of me, I 
will never blame him ; but that I cannot think, and it is 
borne in on my mind that he has more need of me than ever. 
So I am just taking my foot in my hand and going to him,” 
she said, looking at Lily, with a smile. 

‘‘Helen! oh, you will not do that! Go to him, to 
you know not where, to circumstances you are quite, quite 
ignorant of ? Oh, Helen, you will not do that ! ” 

“ Indeed, and that will I,” said Helen, with the same 
calm and steady smile. “I am feared for nothing, but 
maybe that he might hear the news and start to come to 
me before I could get to him.” 

“ That is enough ! ” cried LiI3^ “ Oh, wait till he comes; 
send for him ! Rather any thing than go all that weary 
way across the sea alone.” 

“I am feared for nothing,” Helen said, still smiling, 
“and who would meddle with me? I am not so very 
bonnie, and I am not so very young. I am just as safe, or 
safer, than half the women in the world that have to do 
things the other half do not understand.” 

“ Like myself, you think,” Lily said ; and it was on her 
lips to add : “ If you succeed no better than me ! ” But the 
bondage of life was upon her, and of the pride and the de- 
corum of life. Ronald had taken no part in this conversa^ 
tion, but he was there all the time, standing against the 
window, looking out. He was very impatient that his con- 
versation with his wife, so important in ever}^ way, should 
be interrupted. His own affairs were so full in his mind, 
as was natural, that any enforced pause in the discussion 
of them appeared to him as if the course of the world 
had been stopped. And this country girl’s insignificant 
little story, perfectly wild and foolish as it was, that it 
should take precedence of his own at so great a crisis ! 
He turned round at last and said in a voice tli rilling with 
impatience: “I hope, as Lily does, that you will do nothing 
rash. Miss Blythe. We have a great deal to do ourselves 
with our own arrangements.” 


439 


“And I am keeping Lily from you ? You will excuse me,” 
cried Helen, wounded, “ but I am going to do something 
very rash, as you say, and I may never come back ; and I 
cannot leave a friend like Lily, and one my father was 
proud of, and thought upon on his death-bed, and one that 
knows where I am going and wliy, without a word. There 
is perhaps nobody but Lily in the world that knows what 
I mean, and wliat I am doing, and my reasons for it,” 
Helen said. She took her friend’s hands once more into 
her own. “ But I will not keep you from him, Lily, when 
no doubt you have so much to say.” 

“ You shall not go,” said Lily, with something of her 
old petulance, “ till you have seen what I have to show 
you, and till you have told me every thing there is to tell. 
Oh, my baby, my little bairn, my little flower ! I could be 
angry that you have put him out of my head for a moment. 
Come, come, and see him now.” 

Ronald paced up and down the room when he was left 
alone ; his impatience was not, perhaps, without some 
excuse. He was very anxious to come to some ground of 
agreement with Lily, some basis upon which their life 
could be built. He had hoped much from the great coup 
of the morning, from the bringing back of the child, which 
he had intended to do himself, taking advantage of the 
first thrill of emotion, and identifying himself, its father, 
with the infant restored to her arms ; but the women, with 
their folly, had spoiled that moment for him, and lost him 
the best of the opportunity, and now there was another 
woman thrusting her foolish story into the midst of that 
crisis in his life. Ronald was out of heart and out of 
temper. He began to see, as he had never done before, the 
difficulties that seemed to close up his path. He had 
feared, and yet not feared, the tempest of reproaches 
which no doubt Lily would pour upon him. He did not 
know her any better than this, but expected what the con- 
ventional woman would do in a book, or a malicious 
story, from his wife ; and he had expected that there 
would be a great quarrel, a heaping up of every grievance,, 


440 


and then tears, and then reconciliation, as in every story of 
the kind tliat had ever been told. But even if she could 
resist the sight of him and of his pleading, Ronald felt 
a certainty that Lily could not resist the return of her 
child ; for this she would forgive every thing. This link 
that held them together was one that never could be 
broken. He had calculated every thing with the greatest 
care, but he had not thought it necessary to go beyond 
that. When she had her child in her arms, Lily, he felt 
sure, would return to his, and no cloud should ever come 
between them more. 

But now this delusion was over. She had not showered 
reproaches upon him. She had not done any thing he ex- 
pected her to do. The dreadful, the astounding revelation 
that had been made to him was that this was not Lily any 
longer. It was another woman, older, graver, shaped by 
life and experience, without faith, with a mind too clear, 
with e3^es too penetrating. Would she ever turn to him 
otherwise than with that look, which seemed to espy a new 
pretence, a new deception, in every thing he said ? Ronald 
still loved his wife ; he would have given a great deal, 
almost, perhaps, the half of Sir Robert’s fortune, to have 
his Lil}'' back again as she had been ; but he began now 
for the first time to feel that it would be necessary to give 
up that vision, to arrange his life on another footing. If 
she would but consent at least to fulfil the decorums of 
life, to remain under his roof, to be tlie mistress of his 
house, not to flaunt in the face of the world the division 
between these two who had made a love-marriage, who 
had not been able to keep apart when every thing was 
against their union, and now were rent asunder when eveiy 
thing was in its favor ! What ridicule would be poured 
upon him ! What talk and discussion there would be ! 
His mind flashed forward to a vision of himself alone in Sir 
Robert’s great house in George Square, and Lily probabh" 
here at Dalrugas with her child. Sir Robert’s house was 
his, and Sir Robert’s fortune was his. Except what he 
chose to give her, out of this much desired fortune — for 


441 


wliicb, indeed, it was he who liad planned and suffered, not 
she — she had no right to any thing. There was so much 
natural justice in Ronald Lumsden’s mind that he did not 
like this, though, as it was the law, and he a lawyer, it cost 
him less than it might have done another man ; but lie 
meant to make the strongest and most effective use of it 
all the same. He meant to show her that she was entirely 
dependent upon him — she and her child ; that she had 
nothing and no rights except what he chose to allow her ; 
and that it was her interest and that of her child (whom, 
besides, he could take from her were he so minded) to keep 
on affectionate terms with him. 

This, though it gave him a certain angry satisfaction, 
was a very different thing, it must be allowed, from what 
lie had dreamed. He had thought of recovering Lily as 
she was in the freshness of her love and faith before even 
the first stroke of that disappointment about the house, the 
garret in Edinburgh, upon which her hopes had been fixed : 
full of brightness and variety, a companion of whom one 
never would or could tire, whose faitii in him would make 
up for any failure of appreciation on the part of the rest of 
the world, nay, make an end of that — for would not such a 
faith have inspired him to believe in himself, to be all she 
believed him to be ? Did he live a hundred years, and she 
by his side, Ronald now knew that he would never have 
that faith again. And the absence of it would be more 
than a mere negative : it would inspire him the wrong 
way, and make him in himself less and less worthy — a man 
of calculations and schemes — all that she most objected to, 
but of which he felt the principle in himself. It is not to 
be supposed that he himself called, or permitted himself to 
imagine, these calculations base. He thought them reason- 
able, sagacious, wise, the only way of getting on in the 
world. They had succeeded perfectly in the present 
instance. He was conscious, with a sort of pride, that he 
had thus fairly gained Sir Robert’s fortune, which he had 
set before him as an object so long ago. He had won it, 
as it were, with his bow and his spear, and it was such a 


442 


gain to a young man as was unspeakable, helping him in 
every way, not only in present comfort, but in importance, 
in his profession, in the opinion of the solicitors, who 
had always more confidence in a man who had money of 
his own. Ah, yes, he had won in this struggle — but then 
something cold clutched at his heart. He was a young 
man still, and he loved his wife — he wanted her and happi- 
ness along with all those other possessions ; but when he 
won Sir Robert’s money, he had lost Lily. Was this so? 
Must he consent that this should be so? Were the}^ 
separated forever by the thing that ought to unite them ? 
He said to himself : No, no ! ” but in his heart he felt that 
cold shadow closing over him. They might be together as 
of old — more than of old — each other’s constant compan- 
ions. But Lily would never be to him what she had been ; 
they would be two, living side by side, unconsciously or 
consciously criticising each other, spying upon each other. 
They would no more be one ! 

To meet this, when one had expected the flush and 
assurance of success, has of all things in the world the 
most embittering and exasperating effect upon the mind. 
Ronald had looked for trouble with Lily — the ordinary 
kind of trouble, a quarrel, perhaps d outrance^ involving 
many painful scenes — but he liad never thought of the 
real effect of his conduct upon her mind, the tremendous 
revulsion of her feelings, the complete change of his 
aspect in her eyes, and of that which she presented to him. 
A moment of disgust with every thing — with himself, 
with her, with his success and all tliat it could produce — 
succeeded the other changes of feeling. It is not unnatural 
at such a moment to wish to do harm to somebody, to 
throw off something of that sense of the intolerable that 
is in one’s own mind upon another. And Ronald be- 
thought himself of what Helen Blythe had said, her com- 
plete acquaintance with the story which had been so care- 
fully concealed from her, and her confession that she had 
it from Katrin. A wave of wrath went over him. Katrin 
had been in the secret from the beginning, not by any 


443 


desire of his, but because tlie circumstances rendered it 
inevitable that she should be so, and nothing could be 
done without her complicity. He said to himself that he 
had never liked her, nor her surly brute of a husband, who 
had looked at him with so much suspicion on many of his 
visits here. They thought themselves privileged persons, 
no doubt ; faithful servants, who had been of use, to 
whom on that account every thing was to be forgiven ; 
who would be in his own absence, as they had been in Sir 
Robert’s, a sort of master and mistress to Dalrugas, re- 
counting to every-body, and to the child when he grew 
up, the history of his parents’ marriage, entertaining all 
the country neighbors with it — an intolerable suggestion. 
With them at least short work could be made. He rang 
the bell hastily and desired that Katrin should be sent to 
him at once, she and her husband, and awaited their 
appearance impatiently, forming sharp phrases in his 
mind to say to them, with the full purpose of pouring oil 
their heads the full volume of his Avrath. 

Katrin received that summons without surprise. She 
had thought it likely that something would be said to her 
of gratitude for her faithful service, and for her care of 
Lily; perhaps a little present given, which Katrin did not 
want, but yet would have prized and guarded among her 
chief treasures. She called in Dougal fiom the stable, 
and hastily brushed the straAvs and dust from his rough 
coat. “ But they ken you’re aye among the beasts ! ” she 
said. She herself put on a spotless white apron, and tied 
the strings of her cap, Avhich in the heat of the kitchen 
Avere often flying loose. Dougal folloAved her, Avith no 
such look of pleasure on his face. To him Ronald Avas still 
“ that birky from Edinburgh,” whose visits and absences, 
and all the mystery of his appearance and disappearance, 
had so often upset the house and Avrought Miss Lil}" Avoe. 
The wish that he could just have got his tAvo hands on 
him had not died out of his mind, and it Avas bitter to 
Dougal to feel that this man Avas to be henceforth his 
master, even though he believed he Avas about to receive 


444 


nothing but compliments and gratification from his hand. 
Ronald was still walking up and down the room when the 
pair — Katrin with her most smiling and genial looks — 
appeared at the door. 

Oh, you are there ! ” he said hastily with a tone of 
careless disdain. ‘‘I wished to speak to you at once to let 
you know what I have settled, that you may have time 
to make your own arrangements. There are likely to 
be many changes in the house — and the way of living 
altered altogether. I think it best to tell you that, after 
Whit-Sunday, Mrs. Lumsden will have no further occa- 
sion for your services.” 

He had not found it so easy as he thought, in face of 
Katrin’s changing face, which clouded a little with surprise 
and disappointment at his first words, then rose into 
flushed amazement, and then to consternation. Sir ! ” 
she cried, when he paused, aghast, and without another 
word to say. 

I kent it would be that wa}^,” Dougal muttered, behind 
her, in the opening of the door. 

Well ! ” said Ronald sharply, ‘Miave you any thing to 
say against it? I am aware you have for a long time 
considered this house your own, but that was simply 
because of the negligence of the master. That time is over, 
and it is in new hands. You will understand, though it is 
not the usual time for speaking, that I give you lawful 
notice to leave before the Wliit-Siinday term in this cni - 
rent year.” 

‘‘ Sir,” said Katrin again, “I’m thinking I canna rightly 
trust to my ears. Are you meaning to send me — me and 
Dougal, Sir Robert’s auld servants, and Miss Lily’s faithful 
servants — away? and take our places from us that we’ve 
held this twenty year ? I think I maun be bewitched, for I 
canna believe my ears ! ” 

“ Let us have no more words on the subject,” said Ronald ; 
“ arguing will make it no better. You are Sir Robert’s 
old servants, no doubt, but Sir Robert is dead and buried ; 
and liow far you were faithful servants to him — after all 


445 


that I know of my own experience — the less said of that 
the better, it seems to me.” 

“ Dougal,” said Katrin, with a gasp, hand me, that I 
dinna burst ! He is meaning the way we’ve beliaved to 
him ! ” 

‘‘And he has good reason !” said Dougal, his shaggy 
brows meeting each other over two fiery sparks of red eyes. 
“ ’Od, if I had had my will, many’s the time, I would have 
kickit him out o’ the house ! ” 

Dougal’s words were but as a muttering — the growl of a 
tempest — but the two people blocking the door, meeting 
him with sudden astonishment and a quick-rising fury of 
indignation which matched his own, wrought Ronald’s 
passion to a climax ; he seized up his hat, which was on 
the table, and pushed past them, sending tlie solid figures 
to right and left. “ That’s enough. I have nothing more 
to say to you ! ” he said. 

It was Katrin that caught him by the arm. “ Maister 
Lumsden,” she said, “ye’ll just satisfy me first! Is it 
because of what we did for you — takin’ ye in, makin’ ye 
maister and mair, keepiii’ your secret, helpin’ a’ your 
plans — that you’re now turnin’ us out of our daily bread, 
out o’ our hame, out o’ your doors ? ” 

“ Cheating your master in every particular,” said Ron- 
ald, “as you will me, no doubt, whenever you have a chance. 
Yes ; that is one of my reasons. What did you say ? ” 

He raised the cane in his hand. The movement was 
involuntary, as if to strike at the excited and threatening 
countenance of Dougal behind. They were huddled in a 
little crowd on the top of the winding stair. Ronald had 
turned round, on his way out, at Katrin’s appeal, and stood 
with his back to the stair, close upon the upper step. 
“ What did you say ? ” he cried again sharply. Dougal’s 
utterances were never clear. He said sometliing again, in 
which “ Go-d ! ” was the only articulate word, and made 
a large step forward, thrusting his wife violently out of 
the way. 

It all happened in a moment, before they could draw 


446 


breath. Roland, it is to be supposed, made a hasty, in- 
voluntary step backward before this threatening, furious 
figure, with his arm still lifted, and the cane in it ready 
to strike, but lost his footing, and thus plunged headfore- 
most down the deep well of the spiral stair. 


CHAPTER XL VIII 

Lilt was very reluctant to let Helen go. She kept her 
on pretence of the child, who had to be exhibited and 
adored. A great event annihilates time. It seemed 
already to Lily that the infant had never been out of her 
arms, that he had alwa3^s found his natural refuge pressed 
close to her, with his little head against her breast. She 
had at first, with natural but unreasonable feeling, ordered 
Margaret out of her sight, she who had been the instru- 
ment of so much suffering to her ; but the woman had 
defended herself with justice. It is me that have done 
every thing for him all this time,” she said. It is me 
that have trained him up to look for his mammaw. Eh, 
it would have been easy to train the darlin’ to look to no- 
body but me in the world ; but I have just made it his 
daily thought that he was to come to his mammaw, and 
summer and winter and night and day I have thought of 
nothing but that bairn.” Lily had yielded to that appeal, 
and Beenie had already made Margaret welcome. They 
sat in the little outer room, already established in all the 
old habits of their life, sitting opposite to each other, with 
their needle-work, and all its little paraphernalia of work- 
boxes and reels of thread, brought out as if there had 
never been any interruption of their life, and the faint, 
half-whispered sound of their conversation making a sub- 
dued accompaniment ; while Lily, with her child on her 
knee, pausing every moment to talk to him, to admire 
him, to respond to the countless little baby appeals to her 
attention, appeared to Helen an image of that perfect 


447 


liappiness wliicli is more completely associated to women 
with the possession of a child than with aii}'^ other circum- 
stance in the world. Helen did not know, except in the 
vaguest manner, of any thing that lay below. She divined 
that there might be grievances between the two who had 
been so long parted. But Helen herself would have for- 
given Ronald on the first demand. His sins would have 
been to her simply sins, to be forgiven, not a character 
with which her own was in the most painful opposition. 
She would have entered into no such question. Lily 
detained her as long as possible, enquiring into all her 
purposes, which it was far too late to attempt to shake. 
Helen, in her rustic simplicity and complete ignorance of 
the world, was going to America, to its most distant and 
rudest part, the unsettled and dubious regions of the 
West, the backwoods, as they were then called, which 
might have been in another planet for any thing this 
innocent Pilgrim knew of them, and, indeed, at that time, 
unless to those who had made it a special study, those out- 
skirts of civilization were known scarcely to any. ‘‘ There 
will aye be conveyances of some kind. I can ride upon a 
horse if it comes to that,” Helen said, with her tranquil 
smile. “And no doubt he will come to meet me, which 
will make it all easy.” 

“And that is the whole of your confidence ! ” cried Lily. 

“No, no! my confidence is in God, that knows every 
thing ; and, Lily, you should bless his name that has 
brought you out of all your trouble, and given 3^011 that 
darlin’, God bless him, and a good man to stand b}^ you, 
and your settled home. Oh, if I can but get Alick to 
come back, to settle, to work my bittie of land, and live an 
honest, quiet life like our forbears ” — the tears stood for a 
►moment in Helen’s eyes — “ but I will think of you, a happy 
woman, my bonnie Lily, and it will keep my heart.” 

What a strangely different apprehension of her own 
position was in Lily’s heart as she sat alone when Helen 
had gone. The baby had gone to sleep and had been laid 
on the bed, and she began to pace slowly about in her room, 


448 


as Ronald was doing so near to her, with a heavy heart, 
notwithstanding her joy, wondering and questioning with 
herself what the life was to be that lay before lier. A 
settled home, a good man to stand by her, a lovely child. 
What more could woman want in this world ? The crisis 
could not continue as it was now ; some ground of pos- 
sibility must be come to, some foundation on which to 
build their future life. To think of accompanying her 
husband to Edinburgh, taking possession of her uncle’s 
house, establishing herself in it, he the master of every 
thing, made her heart sick. If they had stolen his money 
from old Sir Robert, it would have been less dreadful tlian 
thus to take every thing from him, in defiance of all his 
wishes, as soon as he was dead, when he could assert his 
own will no more. If she could remain where she was, 
Lily felt that she could bear it better. But this was only 
one part of the question before her which liad to be settled. 
She — who had become Ronald’s wife in the fervor and 
enthusiasm of a foolish young love, who had lived on his 
coming, on the hope of his return, on the dream of that 
complete and perfect union before God and man in which 
nobody could shame them or throw a shadow on their 
honor — to find herself now, after being betrayed and 
deceived and outraged, her heart torn out of her breast, 
her child out of her arms, the truth out of her life, in the 
position of the happy woman, her home assured, her hus- 
band by her side, her child in her arms — to be called upon 
to thank God for it, to take up her existence as if no cloud 
had covered it, and face the world with a smiling face, 
forgetting all that interval of misery and deprivation and 
falsehood ! Her steps became quicker and quicker as tlie 
tide of her thoughts rose. Amid all the surroundings, 
which were those of perfect peace — the child asleep in its 
cradle, the soft undertones of the attendant women — yet 
all that passion and agony within ! 

But Lily knew this could not be. Dreadful reason and 
necessity faced her like two dumb images of fate. Some 
way of living had to be found, some foundation on which 


449 


to build the new, changed, disenchanted life. She had no 
desire to shame Ronald in tlie sight of his friends, to make 
her indignation, her disappointment, the property of the 
world. There would be critics enough to judge him and 
his schemes to secure Sir Robert’s money. It was hers, in 
the loyalty of a wife, to take her share of the burden, to 
let it be believed, at least, that all had been done with her 
consent ; and obnoxious as this was to Lily, she forced her 
mind to it as a thing that had to be. That was, liowever, 
an outside matter ; the worst of the question was within : 
how were they to live together side by side, to share all 
the trivialities of life, to watch over together the growth 
of their child, to decide together all the questions of exist- 
ence, like two who were one, who were all in all to each 
other — these two who were so far and so fatally apart? 
But Lily did not disguise from herself that this must be 
done. She calmed herself down with a strong exertion of 
her will, and prepared herself to meet her husband, to dis- 
cuss with him, as far as was possible, the future conditions 
of their life. 

She had turned to leave her room in order to join Ronald 
and proceed to this discussion when the silence of the 
house was suddenly disturbed by a shriek of horror and 
dismay ; no little cry, but one that pierced the silence like 
a knife, sharp, sudden, terrible, followed by a voice, in 
disjointed sentences, declaiming, praying, crying out like a 
prophet or a madman. The two women came rushing to 
Lily from the outer room, struck with terror. What was 
it ? Who was it that was speaking ? The voice was not 
known to any of them ; the sound of the broken words, 
loud, as if close to their ears, gradually becoming intelligi- 
ble, yet without any meaning they could understand, drove 
them wild with terror. ‘‘What is it?” they all cried. 
Was it some madman who had broken into the house? 
Lily cast a glance — the mother’s first idea — to see that all 
was safe with the child, and then hastened through the 
empty drawing-room, where she expected to find Ronald. 
The door was open, and through the doorway there ap- 
29 


450 


peared a tragic, awful figure, a woman with her hands 
sometimes lifted to her head, sometimes wildly flung into 
the air, her voice growing hoarser, giving forth in terrible 
succession those broken sentences, in wild prayer, exhorta- 
tion, invective, it was impossible to say which. Some 
locks of her hair, disturbed by the motion of her hands, 
hung loose on her forehead, her eyes were wildly en- 
larged and staring, her lips loose and swollen with the 
torrent of passionate sound. For a moment Lily stood 
fixed, terrified, thinking it a stranger, some one she had 
never seen before, and the first words were like those of a 
prayer. 

“ Lord hae mercy ! Lord hae mercy ! Swear ye didna 
lay a finger on him, no a finger ! Swear ye didna touch 
him, man ! Oh, the bonnie lad! oh, the bonnie lad !” 
Then a shriek again, as from something she saw. “ Tak’ 
him up gently, tak’ him softly ! his head, his head ! tak’ 
care of his head 1 Oh, the bonnie lad, the bonnie lad ! 
Lord hae mercy, mercy ! Say ye didna lay a finger on 
him ! Swear ye didna touch him ! Oh, his head, his head, 
it’s his head ! Oh, men, lift him like a bairn ! Lord hae 
mercy, hae mercy ! Say ye didna lay a finger on him ! Oh, 
the bonnie lad, the bonnie lad ! ” The wild figure clasped 
its hands, watching intently something going on below, 
which now became audible to the terrified watchers also — 
sounds of men’s footsteps, of hurried shuffling and strug- 
gling, audible through the broken shrieks and outcries of 
the woman at the top of the stairs. 

‘‘ Who is it ? ” cried Lily, breathless with terror, fall- 
ing back upon her attendants behind her. 

‘‘ Katrin, Katrin, Katrin 1 ” cried Beenie, carried away 
by the wild contagion of the moment ; ‘‘ she’s gone mad, 
she’s gone out of her senses 1 Mem, come back to your ain 
room ; come back, this is nae place for you ! ” 

Katrin ! was it Katrin, this wild figure ? Lily darted 
out and caught her by the arm. 

‘‘ Katrin ! what has happened ? Is it you that have 
been crying so ? Katrin, whatever it is, compose your- 


451 


self. Come and tell me what has happened ! Is it 
Dougal ? What is it ? We will do every thing, every 
thing that is possible.” 

Katrin turned her changed countenance upon her mis- 
tress; her swollen lips hanging apart ceased their utterance 
with a gasp. She looked wildly down the stairs, then, 
putting her hands upon Lily’s shoulders, pushed her back 
into the room, signing to Robina behind. ‘‘ Keep her 

away, keep her ” she seemed to them to say, making 

wild motions with her hands to the rooms beyond. Her 
words were too indistinct to be understood, but her 
gestures were clear enough. 

‘‘Oh, mem,” cried Beenie, “ it will be something that’s 
no for your eyes! For mercy’s sake, bide here and let me 
gang and see!” 

“ Whatever has happened, it is for me to see to it,” 
said Lily. And then, disengaging herself from them, 
she said, for the first time very gravely and calmly: 
“My husband must have gone out. Go and look for 
him. Whatever has happened, it is he who ought to be 
here.” 

She got down stairs in time to see the stumbling, 
staggering figures of the men carrying him into the library. 
But it was not till some time afterward that Lily had any 
suspicion what it was. She thought it was Dougal, who 
had met with some dreadful accident. She had the calm- 
ness in this belief to send off at once for a doctor in two 
different directions ; and, having been begged by her 
uncle’s valet not to go into the room till the doctor came, 
obeyed him without alarm, and went out to the door to 
look for Ronald. It was strange he should have gone out 
at this moment, but how could he know that any thing 
would be wanted to make his presence indispensable ? 
Most likely he was angry with her for keeping him wait- 
ing, for talking to Helen Blythe when there were things so 
much more important in hand. She went out to the door 
to look for him, not without a sense that to have him to 
refer to in such an emergency was something good, nor 


452 


without the thought that it would please him to see her 
looking out for him over the moor. 

Ronald never spoke again. If his death was not 
instantaneous in point of fact, it was so virtually, for he 
never recovered consciousness. He had fallen with great 
force down the stairs from the worn upper step, which 
had failed his foot as he made that recoil backward from 
Dougal’s threatening advance — the step of which he had 
so often spoken in half derision, half seriousness, as a 
danger for any old man. Neither he nor any one else could 
have supposed it was a danger for Ronald, so young, so 
full of energy and strength. And many were the reflec- 
tions, it need not be said, upon the vicissitudes of life and 
the fate of the young man, just after long waiting come 
into possession of all that was best in life — fortune and 
happiness, and all the rest. The story was told all over 
the country, from one house to another, and in Edinburgh, 
where he was so well known. To have waited so long for 
the happiness of his life and then not to enjoy it for a 
week, to be seized by those grim fangs of fate in the 
moment of his victory, in the first hour of his joy ! The 
papers were not as bold in those days as now. The fash- 
ion of personalities had not come in unless when something 
very scandalous, concealed under initials, was to be had. 
But there was nothing scandalous in Ronald Lumsden’s 
story. 

In the enquiry that followed there was at first an 
attempt to suggest that Dougal, who was shown to have 
been always in opposition to him, and sometimes to have 
uttered half threats of what he would do if he could get 
his hands on that birky from Edinburgh, was instrumental 
in causing his death. And poor Katrin, changed into an 
old woman, with gray hair that would not be kept in order 
under her white cap, and lips that hung apart and could 
scarcely utter a word clearly, was examined before the 
procurator, especiall}^ as to what she meant by the words 
which she had been heard by all in the house to repeat as 


453 


she stood screaming at the head of the stairs : ‘‘ Swear 
you never lifted a finger upon him! ” Were these direc- 
tions she was giving to her husband in case of any future 
investigation ? or was she adjuring him to satisfy her, to 
let her know the truth ? But Katrin was in no condition 
to explain to any one, much less to the procurator in his 
court, what she had meant. But there was no proof 
against Dougal, and every evidence of truth in his story ; 
and any doubt that might subsist in the minds of persons 
apt to doubt every thing, and to believe the worst in every 
case, died awa}^ into silence after a while. It is possible 
that the possibility harmed him, though, as he retained 
his place and trust in Dalrugas, even that was of no great 
consequence ; but Katrin never was, as the country folk 
said, “ her own woman ” again. She never could get out 
of her eyes the horror of that sudden fall backward, the 
sound against the stone wall, on the stone steps. In the 
middle of the night, years after, she would wake the 
house, calling upon her husband, with pathetic cries, to 
swear he never laid a finger on him. This made their lives 
miserable, though they did not deserve it ; for Katrin 
knew at the bottom of her heart, as Dougal knew — but hav- 
ing said it once, would not repeat — that he laid no finger 
on Ronald, nor ever, save in the emptiest of words, meant 
him any harm. 

Lily was lost for a time in a horror and grief of which 
compunction was the sharpest part. Her heart-recoil from 
her husband, her sense of the impossibility of life by his 
side, her revulsion against him, overwhelmed her now 
more bitterly, more terribly, than the poignant recollec- 
tions of happiness past which overwhelm many mourners. 
The only thing that gave her a little comfort in those 
heavy depths was the remembrance of the moment when, 
all unknowing that he could never again come to her, she 
had gone out to look for Ronald over the moor. There 
might have been comfort to her after a while in that 
moor, which had been the confidant of so many of her 
thoughts of him ; but to go up and down, in all the com- 


454 


mon uses of life, the stairs upon which he died was 
impossible. She felt a compunction the more to leave the 
scene of all the happier days, the broken life which yet 
was often so sweet, which had been the beginning of all. 
It seemed almost an offence against him to leave a place so 
connected with his image, but still it was impossible to 
remain. There was a little mark upon the wall which 
made them all shudder. And Lily was terrified when her 
baby was carried up or down those stairs : the surest foot 
might stumble where he had stumbled, and it is not true 
that the catastrophes of life do not repeat themselves. 
Life is all a series of repetitions ; and why not that as 
well as a more common thing ? 

It was this above all things else that made her leave the 
house of her fathers, the place where her tragedy had 
been played out, from its heedless beginning to its dread- 
ful, unthought-of end. It was not so common then as now 
for the wrecked persons of existence to betake themselves 
over the world to the places where the sun shines bright- 
est and the skies are most blue ; but still, when the wars 
were all well over, it was done by many, and the young 
widow, with her beautiful child, and her two women attend- 
ants, was met with by many people who knew, or were 
told by those who knew, her strange story and pitied her 
with all their hearts. They pitied her for other sufferings 
than those which were really hers. Those that were at- 
tributed to her were common enough and belong to the 
course of nature ; the others were different, but perhaps 
not less true. But it cannot be denied either that as there 
was a certain relief even in the first shock of Lily’s grief, 
a sense of deliverance from difficulties beyond her power 
to solve, so there was a rising of her heart from its oppres- 
sion, a rebound of nature and life not too long delayed. 
Her child made every thing easy to her, and made, all the 
more for coming back to her so suddenly, a new beginning 
of life. And that life was not unhappy, and had many 
interests in it notwithstanding the fiery ordeal with which 
it began. 


455 


Helen Blythe came back to Kinlocli-Rugas within the 
year, bringing her husband with her. He was not, perhaps, 
reformed and made a new man of, as he vowed he would 
be in her hands. Perhaps, except in moments of exalta- 
tion, she had not expected that. But she did what she 
had soberly declared to be the mission of many women — • 
she “pulled him through.” They settled upon her little 
property and farmed it more or less well, more or less ill, 
according as Alick could be kept “ steady,” and Helen’s 
patience. Two children came, both more or less pathet- 
ically careful, from their birth, of their father ; and the 
household, though it bore a checkered existence, was happy 
on the whole. When Helen saw the Manse under the 
chill celibate rule of the new minister, she was very sorry 
for him, but entertained no regrets ; and when, later in 
life, he married, the preciseness of the new establishment 
moved her to many a quiet laugh, and the private convic- 
tion, never broken, that, in her own troubled existence, 
always at full strain, with her “ wild ” Alick but partially 
reformed, and the many roughnesses of the farmer’s life, 
her ambitions for her boy, and her comfort in her girl, she 
was better off than in her old sphere. She did not make 
her husband perfect, but she “ pulled him through.” Per- 
haps, had she taken the reins of that wild spirit into her 
hands at first, she might have made him all that could have 
been wished ; but as it was she gave him a possible life, 
a standing-ground when he had been sinking in the waves, 
a habitation and a name. 

Lily came back to the North to establish herself in a 
house more modern and comfortable, and less heavy with 
associations, than Dalrugas, some years after these events, 
and there was much friendship between her and the old 
minister’s daughter, who had been so closely woven with 
the most critical moments of her life. They were different 
in every possible respect, but above all in their view of 
existence. Helen had her serene faith in her own influence 
and power to shape the other lives which she felt to be 
in her charge, to support her always. But to Lily there 


456 


seemed no power in herself to aifect others at all. She, so 
much more vivacious, stronger, to all appearance of higher 
intelligence, had been helpless in her own existence, able 
for no potent action, swept by the movements of others 
into one fated path, loved, yet incapable of influencing 
any who loved her. She was now a great deal better off, 
her life a great deal brighter, with all manner of good 
things within her reach, than Helen, on her little bit of 
land, pushing her rough husband, with as few detours as 
possible, along the path of life, and smiling over her hard 
task. Lily was a wealthy woman, with a delightful boy, 
and all those openings of new hope and interest before her 
in him which give a woman perhaps a more vivid happi- 
ness than any thing strictly her own. But the one mother 
trembled a little, while the other looked forward serenely 
to an unbroken tranquil course of college prizes and bur- 
saries, and at the end a good manse, and perhaps a popular 
position for her son. What should Lily have for hers ? 
She had much greater things to hope for. W ould it be hers 
to stand vaguely in the way of Fate, to put out ineffectual 
hands, to feel the other currents of life as before sweep her 
away ? Or could she ever stand smiling, like simple 
Helen, holding the helm, directing the course, conscious of 
power to defeat all harm and guide toward all good ? But 
that only the course of the years could show. 


THE END 








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